


stuck in the dark

by DivineProjectZero



Series: it's a sweet life [1]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Codependency, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:21:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 77,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26286361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DivineProjectZero/pseuds/DivineProjectZero
Summary: Quinn is nineteen when he meets Eliot Spencer.
Relationships: Mr. Quinn/Eliot Spencer (Leverage)
Series: it's a sweet life [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1909930
Comments: 91
Kudos: 116





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Self-betaed. All mistakes are mine. Constructive feedback is always welcome.
> 
> Chapters in this fic are turning out to be pretty long, so I'll be only updating once a week, (hopefully) every Friday. A huge thank you to Ven and Avian for listening to me whine about this fic for weeks now, and also many thanks to Key for cheerleading my slow progress.
> 
> Title is from "Flashlight" by Jessie J.

Quinn is nineteen when he meets Eliot Spencer. 

He’s in Brussels, looting a millionaire’s private collection of jewelry when another guy appears and pauses at the sight of Quinn sweeping priceless gemstones into a duffle bag. They stare each other down for a silent moment, just long enough to size each other up and analyze who they’re facing and what the best route to take is. Quinn knows a hitter when he sees one, and he can tell this one’s good, going by the way he readily shifts his weight on his feet and his gaze flickers over Quinn with careful precision. They could fight this out, and Quinn thinks there’s a fifty-fifty chance of him winning.

But then again, a fight could bring unwanted attention, and he doesn’t have time to waste by brawling it out with some random hitter in the middle of a robbery.

“I’m gonna clean this lady out,” Quinn says, holding up the bag. “You want in? We can fight over the winnings after we get out of here.”

The other guy blinks, surprise flitting through his expression before something like amusement settles in the slant of his mouth, his shoulders losing the tension a little as he shrugs, the hair that reaches his cheekbones shifting at the movement. “Sure, why not.”

Things proceed quickly from there with an extra set of hands to collect the goods. Soon, they’re both sneaking their way out of the vault and halfway out of the place when the alarms go off, bringing a swarm of security guards down on them.

“You better not slow me down, kid,” the other man says as he rolls his shoulders, and Quinn would be offended if he had the time for it. 

Instead, he slams into a guard and flings him over his shoulder in a perfect shoulder toss, then fluidly rolls on the ground to swipe a leg at the feet of another guard, bringing him down. He brings his shoulder and elbow up to block a blow as he moves back upright, slamming a knee into the next guard’s ribs, making him crumple to the floor. He keeps fighting his way forward like that, moving until he’s gone through his share of the guards, and when he’s done, he looks beside him to find that the other hitter’s left his opponents sprawled on the ground, whimpering softly. 

“Huh.” The hitter raises an eyebrow at Quinn. “Not bad for a kid.”

“I’m not a kid,” Quinn says flatly, but he keeps walking in step with the other guy, until they’ve cleared the exit and have walked three blocks away, far enough for them not to be found right away. 

The other hitter looks at the bag “You got a fence?” 

“None of your business.” Quinn keeps his feet steady, ready to move at a moment’s notice, but the other guy doesn’t make a move for the bag. 

“I need a fence,” the guy admits readily. “My guy got arrested today. I’ll split with you, fifty-fifty.”

Quinn stares. He’s prepared to say no, but he knows the math. He knows the safer play here, not to mention he’s ready to admit that he’s not entirely sure he can take this guy in a fight. The way he’d moved through the guards, as far as Quinn had been able to see, was efficient and ruthless. Quinn would hazard a guess that he’s former Spec Ops. 

“Alright,” Quinn says. If the guy tries to double-cross him once they have the cash, that’s a problem he can deal with later. “Don’t slow me down, old man.”

-

The other hitter doesn’t try to double-cross him. He takes his share of the cash and is about to walk away when they both see the flash of red and blue lights coming their way.

“Shit,” the other hitter says, and Quinn grabs him by the collar and drags him into a narrow alleyway, waiting for the police cars to pass them by. They watch the cars pull up to a stop in front of the antique shop they’d exited barely five minutes ago, and Quinn watches one of the police officers unfold a piece of paper to show it to the owner. “We’ve been blown.”

“Your fence probably rolled on you,” Quinn says, and the other hitter grunts, probably in affirmation. 

Quinn thinks about it. There’s a chance that his fake identity’s been burned as well, if the millionaire’s put two and two together to realize Quinn isn’t actually the heir to a billion-dollar fortune as he pretended to be. It’s possible he might have to get into more fights before he leaves this city.

There’s safety in numbers. That’s the only reason he says, “You can stay with me, if you want.”

The other hitter hesitates, but he must come to the same conclusion Quinn has. He nods. “Lead the way.”

-

When they’re both sequestered in the shabby, shady hotel room Quinn secured for himself, he feels a flutter of nerves when he remembers that there’s only one bed in the room, because he’s had some people want things from him that he wasn’t willing to give before. 

But the other guy says, “I’ll take first watch.”

Quinn blinks, wondering if he’s willing to chance falling asleep with an experienced hitter in the same room as him and two bags of cash. There’s a very real possibility of having his throat slit in his sleep. Or at least waking up to an empty room without the cash.

Too late to regret that now. He’s already invited the guy to stay here. He’s going to have to trust him until morning, at the very least. 

“Sure, uh.” He flounders for a moment, unsure whether he wants to ask, but the other hitter answers him anyway.

“Eliot Spencer.” Guarded blue eyes meet his, and Quinn knows this is an offer of trust. Repayment for Quinn bringing him here. And for all that Quinn has lived a life of distrust and paranoia, he doesn’t doubt for a second that this is the man’s real name.

There’s only one way to respond to that. “Quinn.”

Spencer raises an eyebrow, but he doesn’t seem put off by the single word Quinn offers him. If anything, he seems amused. “Alright. You mind if I wash up first?”

“Go ahead.” Quinn flaps a hand at him. “Don’t use up all the hot water.”

Spencer snorts but heads into the bathroom, and Quinn takes a moment to wonder if he should keep his current outfit on in case Spencer decides to change his mind and opt for a fight. In the end, he decides to change out of his turtleneck into a loose teeshirt but keep his chinos on. He doesn’t want to look too comfortable.

Later, when they’re both ready for the night and the lights are turned off, Spencer sits on the floor against a wall with his bag beside him, facing the door while Quinn lays on the creaky mattress, his bags stashed under the bed.

“Four hours,” Spencer says. That’s all he says, and Quinn closes his eyes without answering.

-

Quinn wakes with a sharp inhale at the sound of a low voice saying his name. In the dim moonlight streaming through the windows, he can see that Spencer hasn’t budged an inch from where he was when Quinn fell asleep.

“I don’t mind.” Spencer says when Quinn gets out of bed to switch places with him. “I can sleep like this.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Quinn says. “Get on the bed.”

With a sigh, Spencer does as he’s told, dragging his duffle bag and depositing it beside the bed. It takes less than ten minutes for his breathing to find the steady, soft rhythm of sleep, and Quinn sits in the dark, the Beretta he pulled out from under his pillow in his hand as he waits for morning to come. 

His brain idly thinks about where to go from here, going over possible routes out of the country and potential destinations to rest in before the next job. After a while, his brain eventually settles on the subject of Eliot Spencer, who must’ve seen the gun in Quinn’s hand when they switched places. Who still fell asleep near-instantly, trusting an armed man he just met to keep watch. He wonders if Eliot Spencer is a brave man or a foolish one. If Quinn is making the right choice by trusting him.

Spencer could’ve easily slit Quinn’s throat, too. Quinn didn’t miss the Kabar knife Spencer pulled out to stash under the pillow right before he fell asleep.

Maybe it’s a bad choice, trusting each other. They’re still doing it anyway.

Quinn hasn’t been trusted like this for a while now. Hasn’t had anybody to trust for a long time. 

He’d almost forgotten what it feels like.

-

Quinn can’t explain what makes him follow Spencer out of Brussels to London. Can’t explain why they sit next to each other in the Eurostar without a single word between them, simply walking beside each other like it’s natural. There’s no logical explanation for why he chooses to stand his ground when Spencer turns on him with a conflicted expression on his face.

“You gonna keep following me around?” Spencer asks, sounding like he’s torn between exasperation and paranoia.

“You haven’t killed me yet,” Quinn says. He’s always been a little too reckless for his own good. A little too driven by the emotions that overtake his rationality from time to time. And right now, the thing that’s filling up his chest, the hollow ache inside his ribcage, it’s only soothed by Spencer’s presence.

It’s not that he trusts Spencer wholeheartedly. It’s just that he _wants_ to trust somebody with his whole heart. And Spencer is the closest thing he has to achieving that, right now.

Spencer looks at Quinn, too many emotions flickering through his blue eyes before he sighs. “Fine.”

There’s no logical explanation for why Eliot Spencer chooses to allow Quinn to follow him all the way back to his safehouse, a tiny flat in Battersea. But Eliot allows it all the same, and when Quinn digs out a scratchy blanket from the linen closet and makes himself comfortable on the couch in the evening, Eliot doesn’t lock his bedroom door.

-

“I have a job in Canary Wharf,” Spencer says, six days into Quinn’s stay at Battersea. 

For the most part, they’ve stayed out of each other’s way, their income from the latest job stashed in their bank accounts and their weapons within easy reach. The trust between them is tenuous at best, so Quinn isn’t expecting this at all when Spencer speaks to him first thing in the morning. Quinn’s sitting at the breakfast bar, sipping a cup of coffee made from the grounds he’s been shamelessly stealing from Spencer’s cupboard, and Spencer’s making scrambled eggs and toast. Usually Spencer makes his own food while Quinn gets takeout for himself, but occasionally, one of them has leftovers, and they’ve both taken to stealing each other’s from the fridge if it suits them.

Today, though, Spencer actually dumps food on an extra plate and gives it to Quinn, which is so unexpected that Quinn freezes like a deer in headlights, looking at the breakfast then at Spencer, who’s looking at him with something like a challenge in his eyes.

“It’s not a hard one, but it’s gonna be a lot easier if I’m not the only one working.” Spencer crosses his arms, looking a little uncomfortable but determined to finish talking now that he’s started. “You want in?”

“You gonna take this back if I say no?” Quinn asks, tapping the plate in front of him.

Spencer rolls his eyes. “I ain’t desperate, kid. This,” he says as he points at Quinn’s plate, “is because I have to use all my eggs by today, and I have extra bread. Nothing to do with the job offer.”

So it’s not exactly charity or a bribe. Quinn can work with that. “What are the terms?”

“There’s gonna be a package handoff. I gotta intercept it.” Spencer raises an eyebrow. “Job is three-hundred grand. We can split it fifty-fifty.”

Quinn narrows his eyes. That’s a very generous payoff. There must be a complication here. “Why do you need me?”

Spencer heaves a sigh and looks up at the ceiling, then at the food, not quite meeting Quinn’s eyes. “MI6 is supposed to be the receiving end, and they know my face.”

Oh, that’s definitely a complication. 

Quinn thinks it over. The six figure payout is temping, but he’s not fond of going up against intelligence agencies. Not to mention that the package must be something worth killing for, if it involves MI6 and a payment that high. Hell, does he even trust Spencer enough to go on a job willingly with him? 

He does trust him enough to be here though. Enough to steal his coffee and sleep on his couch and eat the food on his plate.

Quinn never could resist a challenge, anyway. “Yeah, I’m in.” 

Spencer smirks, and it makes his eyes gleam in a way that makes him just a little sharper. Just a little more alive. “Alright, then. We’re leaving at six.”

Then Spencer settles down in the seat at the other end of the breakfast bar and starts to eat, clearly done with the conversation. Staring down at his plate, Quinn picks up a fork. Takes a bite of scrambled eggs. It’s good. Nothing special, but good.

It’s been years since anybody’s cooked for him. He pretends his chest doesn’t ache at the thought.

-

Spencer isn’t impressed by the fact that Quinn brings both of his guns to the job. Apparently he doesn’t use guns. Which is strange, because everything about him screams former military to Quinn, but if there’s a story there, Spencer isn’t sharing. And Quinn sure as hell isn’t digging. Quinn has plenty of stories hidden under his own skin; he knows some secrets are better left alone.

Well, Quinn doesn’t give a damn if Spencer is impressed or not. MI6 has guns. Whoever is bringing the package probably also has guns. Quinn is not going to be the idiot that brings a knife to a gun fight.

Honestly, it’d be easier if Quinn had his sniper rifle with him, but he’s left it in one of his safehouses, so he has to make do. And he does exactly that by shooting out the tires of MI6’s car just as they start to drive away with the package, carefully aiming from the window he cracked open in the car they broke into. Spencer, who’s been waiting in the backseat of the car, waits until the agents get out of their vehicle to look for the source of the shooting. 

“What is this, amateur hour?” Quinn mutters, and Spencer shoots him an amused look before he kicks the door open and makes his move.

True to Quinn’s prediction, MI6 has guns at the ready, but Quinn is fast enough to shoot two of them through the kneecaps before the third one dives behind the the vehicle for cover. From far away, Quinn can tell the original owners of the package are driving back, clearly intrigued with the happenings. Potentially here to recollect the package to take with their payment.

Quinn has to take a few seconds to hotwire the car and kick the engine to life. He drives the car fast and hard, straight into the side of the second vehicle, crashing them hard enough to give everybody aboard whiplash. Then he exits the car to join Spencer at the fray.

Turns out the party that handed over the package aren’t as professional as Quinn worried, so they’re easy pickings. He slams the driver into unconsciousness by cracking his head against the door, then shoots the second man through the thigh and drives a knee into his face. Two more stumble out of their mangled car and attempt to shoot him, but Quinn is faster to drop into a crouch, diving sideways from his cover to get them one of them through a kneecap and the other through a clean shot to his side. 

“Not bad, kid,” Spencer says in the ensuing quiet as everybody else groans on the ground, black briefcase in his hand.

“Not a kid,” Quinn replies calmly, holstering his Beretta back in his concealed shoulder holster. He spots the torn fabric of Spencer’s shirt, the slow spread of red around his bicep. “You got shot, old man?”

“Just a graze.” Spencer starts walking, and Quinn follows after. Once they’re a safe distance away from where they’ve left a group of grown men in a bloody heap, Spencer shoots Quinn an unreadable look. “You didn’t kill any of them.”

“Killing an agent brings too much attention.” Quinn shrugs. “I don’t like getting attention.”

Spencer huffs a quiet laugh, the corners of his mouth softening in a way that makes him seem less like a hitter and more like somebody who doesn’t have blood on his hands. “Good strategy.”

“Can’t live long in this line of work without a strategy,” Quinn says.

Spencer chuckles, his words heavy even when his tone is light. “Living long ain’t easy in this line of work.”

-

Later, after they get paid and they’re back in Spencer’s safehouse, Quinn grabs the emergency kit under the the bathroom sink and gives Spencer a pointed look until he sits down on the couch with a disgruntled sigh, peeling his bloodstained shirt off, leaving him in a black undershirt. His arm is still bleeding sluggishly, so Quinn wipes the skin efficiently with a cloth doused in alcohol, disregarding Spencer’s slow, purposeful inhale. Once the wounded area isn’t overly bloody, Quinn grabs the needle and thread, then gets to work. Spencer, to his credit, doesn’t make a sound except to breathe in a slow, measured rhythm. 

As Quinn deftly stitches Spencer up, he thinks about Spencer’s earlier words. _Living long isn’t easy in this line of work._

Maybe Spencer is planning to die young. Maybe he doesn’t expect to live long. Maybe that’s why he’s let Quinn into his life so easily, against every survival instinct he should have.

“Done,” Quinn murmurs, checking the stitches one more time as he wipes Spencer’s skin clean. It takes him a moment to realize how close he’s leaning into Spencer’s space, and he casually turns to the emergency kit on the coffee table, putting some distance between them. “Try not to get an infection.”

Spencer grunts, then pauses. After a moment of silence, he says, a little awkwardly, “Thanks.”

Quinn blinks. “You’re welcome.”

With a quick, stilted nod, Spencer takes his shirt and disappears into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him with a soft click.

For a moment, Quinn clutches the emergency kit in his hands and wonders if Spencer hasn’t thanked anybody in a while. He sounded like he was out of practice. It was, Quinn thinks in what must be a moment of insanity, almost endearing. 

He doesn’t want Eliot Spencer to die anytime soon.

-

Spencer gives him breakfast every day now. Nothing fancy. Just extra eggs or sausages or sometimes even a salad. He simply puts a plate in front of Quinn, and they eat, and Quinn does the dishes before he leaves for the day, wandering through the streets of London, occasionally paying visits to his contacts until one day he scores a job.

It’s a job in Camden, easy and decent money. Nothing too complicated, nothing too questionable. It shouldn’t be something he needs help with.

But when he goes back to the safehouse, he says, “I have a job tomorrow. You in?”

Spencer looks up from where he’s been sharpening his knives at the coffee table. “What are the terms?”

When Quinn explains, he half expects Spencer to turn him down, citing that it’s an easy job and that him tagging along would be overkill. Hell, Quinn _knows_ it’s overkill. 

But Spencer simply says, “Yeah, count me in.”

-

The job goes well. They knock out a few security guards and grab what’s apparently a very prized first edition of a book. Quinn doesn’t even have to shoot anybody.

“What’s it even about?” Spencer asks as Quinn flips through the pages on the Tube, en-route to the client. 

Quinn hums. Spencer can’t read Danish, but Quinn can decipher bits and pieces. “It’s Hans Christian Andersen. ‘The Little Mermaid.’” 

Spencer blinks. “We just stole a kid’s book?”

“Fairy tales aren’t necessarily just for children.” Quinn finds the original versions of fairy tales fascinating in a morbid way. But he’s never liked this particular story. “Do you know the original version, or do you only know the Disney version?”

“Doesn’t the mermaid die in the original story?” Spencer asks.

“She does,” Quinn confirms. “Turns into seafoam because she couldn’t kill the prince to save herself.”

Spencer blinks slowly. “That’s depressing.”

Quinn doesn’t understand how you could love anybody so much you’d sacrifice your entire self for them. He doubts he could ever love somebody that much. He knows nobody would ever love him that much.

“It’s stupid.” Quinn snaps the book shut. “She should’ve just killed him.”

Spencer raises an amused eyebrow. “I take it you never had something worth dying for?”

“Nothing’s worth dying for,” Quinn drawls.

“Yeah.” The corner of Spencer’s mouth hitches up into a crooked smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Nothing really is.”

-

Two days later, Quinn gets another job.

He doesn’t invite Spencer on that one. Doesn’t even tell him about it.

But the morning after, Spencer looks at the morning newspaper, the news about the murder of a prominent CEO splashed across across the first page, he asks, “Was this you?”

Quinn could lie. He’s very good at lying. 

He doesn’t. “Yeah.”

“Huh.” Spencer doesn’t look particularly bothered or impressed. He doesn’t seem like he’s going to kick Quinn out or express any disappointment in him. He’s completely unreadable. “Nobody can trace it back to you?”

“I doubt it.” Quinn takes a sip of his coffee. Waits for Spencer to ask anything else.

Spencer simply puts the newspaper aside. Hands Quinn a plate heaped with hashbrowns and bacon. “If the cops come sniffing, you’re leaving.”

So it doesn’t bother Spencer, then. Quinn doesn’t know why he thought it might. He can tell that Spencer’s killed plenty of people. He suspects not all of them deserved to die. There’s no reason for Quinn to have expected Spencer to shun him for this.

There’s no reason for Quinn to have worried about Spencer shunning him, either. No reason for him to feel a trickle of relief in his blood.

He still smiles around his mouthful of bacon anyway.

-

They spend a couple more months like that. Going on jobs, sometimes separately, but mostly together. Most jobs stay in London or close by, but occasionally they take jobs farther out. One job takes them to Minsk, where they spend two nights, and another takes them to Sierra Leone, where they spend three nights in various cramped hotel rooms, taking turns to keep watch as they transport a package halfway across the country. On their days off, they stay in Battersea, waiting for the next job offer.

The two of them don’t really talk much. Quinn gleans bits and pieces here and there about Spencer—he’s twenty-four years old, he dislikes baseball, and he grew up in Oklahoma—but they mostly avoid personal topics and stick to professional ones. They discuss the jobs at hand, and maybe debate about weapons or fighting techniques, but otherwise, they don’t share the same space unless it’s for breakfast or for a job. Quinn is fine with that.

Then they go to Cairo.

-

They only need to spend one night there. Prep the evening beforehand, sleep, then get the job done. Get paid, then hop on a plane back to London. It’s all very simple. 

Except things get a lot less simple when Quinn’s sitting on his bed, awake to keep watch for the second shift of the night, reading a worn paperback about forensic psychology when he hears Spencer’s breathing go rapid and shallow in a way that raises every alarm in Quinn’s head. He places the book down and turns to see Spencer in his own bed, twitching and breathing erratically, chest heaving as he starts gulping for air. 

“Spencer,” Quinn says in a low hiss, but it doesn’t work, so he repeats himself a little louder. “Spencer, wake up.”

All he gets is a weak, wounded noise clawing its way out of Spencer’s throat, and nothing changes even when Quinn speaks to Spencer at normal volume. 

Giving up on waking Spencer up by talking, Quinn carefully considers his options. He knows Spencer keeps a knife under his pillow. Going close is a risk. But trying to wake him from a distance would require something with an impact, such as throwing cold water onto Spencer, and Quinn doesn’t want to do anything that could be construed as an attack, in case Spencer wakes the whole hotel in his confusion.

Fuck it. Quinn’s been confronted with worse.

He silently slips from his bed and soundlessly pads towards Spencer’s, careful not to jostle him as he leans over and positions himself firmly before he says Spencer’s name and grasps his shoulder. 

The response is immediate and near-lethal. Spencer jolts, eyes flying wide open as the hand under the pillow brings up the Kabar knife, and Quinn blocks the blow by grabbing hold of Spencer’s wrist, holding firm as he pins the other wrist before it punches him. He’s angled himself so that Spencer can’t quite kick him, but he’s definitely within headbutting distance, so he talks, hoping that it deters Spencer from breaking his nose.

“It’s just me.” He talks as soothingly as he can, gentling his voice to make himself seem as harmless as possible, despite the fact that he’s got Spencer pinned. “It’s me, Quinn. I sleep on your couch, remember? You make me breakfast and we stole a fairy tale together. I’m not gonna hurt you.” It surprises him, how much he means those words. “Spencer, I won’t hurt you.”

It takes a minute, but Spencer’s breathing stabilizes, and then all the tension out of him drains away as he collapses back onto the mattress with a shaky exhale. Spencer’s grip on the knife slackens, until it’s slipping from his hand to the mattress. 

Spencer doesn’t look at Quinn. “You can let go.”

Quinn lets go and steps back. He wavers, just for a moment, thinking that maybe he should say something, anything. But it’s not his place, and it’s not like he and Spencer have ever really _talked_ , so he simply shuffles back to his bed, climbing onto it and grabbing his book, giving Spencer the illusion of privacy as he flips back to the page he was on even as he keeps an ear out for any movements Spencer might make.

Spencer doesn’t really move at all. But from his breathing, Quinn can tell he isn’t sleeping, either.

Neither of them sleep for the rest of the night.

-

They complete the job, because they’re professionals, but they don’t trade a single word on the flight back to London. And then Spencer, for the first time ever, locks the goddamn bedroom door at night. 

Quinn can’t explain why, but he feels like he’s been slapped when he hears the click of metal in the dark. 

Spencer is gone from the flat when Quinn wakes up the next morning, and for a heart-stopping second Quinn’s convinced that Spencer _left_. That he’s gone and not coming back, leaving Quinn behind. It shouldn’t feel like a knife through his heart, but it does, for some inexplicable reason, and he only remembers to breathe again when he sees Spencer’s go bag is on one of the stools at the breakfast bar. 

Quinn doesn’t leave the flat all day, just in case Spencer comes back while he’s gone to take the go bag and disappear.

Spencer doesn’t come back until right before dawn. Quinn’s asleep on the couch, but he wakes instantly when he hears the key turn in the lock. He doesn’t move, feigning sleep while he listens to Spencer walk to the bathroom first, then the bedroom. Again, the lock clicks, but Quinn’s too overwhelmed by relief that Spencer is back to care.

The next day, Spencer leaves the flat while Quinn is drinking coffee, not bothering to make breakfast, and he only returns late at night, reeking of cheap beer and somebody else’s perfume. The day after that proceeds in the same fashion. It goes on for a whole week.

Left alone in the flat, not quite sure if Spencer isn’t going to grab the go bag—still on the stool, like Spencer already has one foot out the door, just waiting to leave entirely—and run, Quinn thinks. Thinks about what he should do from here. About why Spencer is acting like this. Why Quinn cares.

The easy thing would be for Quinn to leave. There’s no real reason for him to still be here. He could go back to Paris. Munich, perhaps. The States could be nice. Or Asia. He misses Tokyo. 

But he wants to stay. He wants to figure out what Spencer’s problem is and solve it. He doesn’t want to stay up every night worrying Spencer is going to leave without warning. 

Why is Quinn so invested in Spencer staying here, anyway? 

He thinks about that for a long time, and doesn’t like the answers he comes up with. He hates them, to be honest.

But he hates the idea of Spencer leaving him even more.

-

Everything comes to a head when Quinn catches Spencer heading for the front door in the morning, and Quinn blocks his path. “You got somewhere important to be?”

“Quinn,” Spencer growls. “Move.”

“No.” Quinn shifts on his feet, ready to counter in case Spencer decides to move him by force. “Wanna tell me what the matter is?” 

Spencer’s expression darkens. “None of your business.”

There’s a lot of tactics Quinn could employ. He knows how to lie, how to coax, how to manipulate. He could drag the truth out of Spencer in bloody tatters, if he put in the effort to do so, but he doesn’t _want_ to. He doesn’t want to do that to Spencer, who asks him to come on jobs with him and thanks him awkwardly for medical attention and makes him breakfast.

“You’re not the only one who has nightmares,” Quinn says in his calmest, most neutral tone. 

“This ain’t about that,” Spencer grits out, and it doesn’t sound quite like a lie, but it doesn’t sound entirely like the truth either. 

Quinn cocks his head to the side. Keeps his voice casual. “Then what’s it about?”

“It’s none of your—why do you care?” The aggravation in Spencer’s voice barely covers his confusion. As if he doesn’t understand why Quinn is confronting him, and that’s fair. Quinn shouldn’t be doing this. Quinn shouldn’t give a fuck about what Eliot Spencer does or where he goes or if he walks out of Quinn’s life. Quinn _shouldn’t_.

But he does. He cares, and every fucking morning Spencer's go bag is on that stool Quinn feels a nameless terror fill his lungs, and he wants that bag back in the bedroom, hidden away. He wants to go on jobs where he has somebody else to keep watch during the night. He wants to eat breakfast with Spencer again.

“Because you keep acting like you’re gonna leave,” Quinn says, and he’s trying his damned hardest to keep his voice steady, but he can’t help the thread of frustration that slips into his tone. “And I figure you don’t plan on taking me with you.”

“What does it matter to you?” Spencer snaps, and Quinn hears the crack in the anger. The slightest hint of vulnerability that he only catches because he’s looking for it. “We’re not friends. We’re not _anything_.”

Quinn bares his teeth. “Then let’s be something. Friends, allies, roommates, I don’t care. I’m sick of guessing if today’s the day you fucking run and leave me behind.”

Spencer advances, both hands grabbing Quinn by the front of his teeshirt and slamming him up against the wall. Quinn lets him, because this means Spencer’s within grabbing distance. That Spencer can’t run until Quinn lets go. “You’re not answering the goddamn question. Why do you care?” Spencer’s voice sounds wrecked as he snarls, “Why the hell are you still here?”

“I don’t have anywhere else to go!” Quinn yells, gripping Spencer by the open front of his jacket, holding tight because if Spencer walks out on him, something deep in Quinn’s chest will crack like broken glass, lacerating him open from the inside-out. 

“You have other safehouses,” Spencer points out in a low growl. “You have enough money to go anywhere you fucking want.”

“What’s the point if you’re not there?” Quinn drags Spencer in, forcing him closer. “What’s the goddamn point if I’m gonna be alone again?” He lowers his voice to a hiss. “Don’t you get it? You’re all I fucking have.”

Spencer falters.

Here’s the thing that Quinn would rather take a bullet than admit aloud: he’s tired of being alone. Spencer makes him feel a little less like he’s scrambling through the dark on his own. Spencer makes him forget what it’s like to be so fucking lonely that the only way to chase the hollow ache in his chest away is a firefight. Spencer is the only person Quinn trusts in the whole damn world right now, and he’s terrified of that very fact.

Here’s the thing that Quinn suspects even though Spencer would probably die rather than admit it aloud: Spencer feels the exact same way.

“Don’t leave,” Quinn says. He doesn’t beg on principle, but this might be the closest he ever gets. “I don’t have anybody else.”

Spencer looks at him, and for a moment Quinn is convinced Spencer’s about to grab the go bag and hightail it out of here—but then Spencer lowers his gaze to somewhere around Quinn’s collarbone, all the anger in him bleeding away as he says in a quiet voice, “I could’ve killed you.”

“When?” Quinn blinks, then gets it. “In Cairo?” He nearly rolls his eyes, but he refrains. “You know I would’ve won that fight, right?”

Spencer shakes his head. “Not the point. Point is, I was about to kill whoever was in front of me, and it was you.” He swallows. “And I didn’t wanna—I can’t. Not you.”

Quinn feels his chest go tight with all the words Spencer doesn’t say. All the words he hears anyway. The same words he thinks to himself when he watches Spencer leave every morning. _I’m scared of losing you._

“I got nothing else.” Spencer’s voice rasps a little, the words wrenched out of his throat. The truth given willingly, even if it hurts to spit it out. “Just you.”

Quinn’s heart is in his throat when he asks, “So, staying with me?”

Spencer lets out a shaky exhale and nods.

They stand there, looking at each other and not quite sure how to look away, when Quinn finally musters a smile. “Can you make breakfast?”

And just like that, Spencer is huffing, stepping back and releasing Quinn, and Quinn lets him go. “Got nobody else to feed you, huh?”

“That’s exactly why I want you to stick around,” Quinn agrees easily, and Spencer actually laughs.

-

“You can call me by my first name,” Spencer says after breakfast. “My friends call me Eliot.”

A tiny, smug smile curls along Quinn’s mouth as he starts washing the dishes. “We’re friends, now?”

Eliot snorts. “Guess so.”

When Quinn finishes washing the dishes, leaving them in the drying rack, he turns to find Eliot on the couch. The go bag isn’t on the stool anymore.

Quinn smiles wider, then goes to join Eliot. 

-

They start talking to each other over the next few days. Snippets and casual exchanges slowly growing into conversations over breakfast and discussions in the evenings. Not just about jobs or weaponry, but also about the little things. What foods they like. Places they’ve been to. Favorite songs. Quinn tells Eliot the ridiculous story about how he got a scar right above his ass, while Eliot repays him by telling him about the one time he broke a toe because he kicked a vending machine while he was drunk and barefoot. 

“It was all Shelley’s fault,” Eliot says. He talks about his former comrades with something both like fondness and grief, like he misses being one of them. “He’s never going to let me live it down.”

“You ever go against him in a job?” Quinn asks, curious.

Eliot pauses, then shakes his head. “I don’t work against the US government. No need for us to go after each other.”

Quinn finishes cleaning his guns and starts reassembling them with deft precision. Watches the way Eliot’s eyes track his every movement. “But you guys don’t work the same side, either.”

“No, we don’t,” Eliot says quietly. “He still thinks our country is worth dying for. I stopped believing that a while ago.” In a louder, deliberately more casual voice: “Just workin’ for myself fits me just fine.”

“Just you against the world, huh?” Quinn asks, keeping his tone lighthearted, his grin easy.

Without really answering, Eliot gives him a crooked smile. “What about you?”

“It’s just me,” Quinn says, then holds up his Beretta and his Glock with a wink, “and these babies against the rest of the world.”

Eliot snorts. “What, did you name ‘em, too?”

“I call them Bonnie and Clyde.” Quinn tucks his guns away, then sees the incredulous look on Eliot’s face and laughs. “Relax, I’m kidding.”

“You better be,” Eliot grouses, taking a long swig of his beer. “Why go for those two when you could have Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?”

Quinn shrugs. “Never seen that one.”

Eliot raises an eyebrow. “You’ve never—you’re a criminal and you’ve never watched that?”

“Never watched a lot of movies,” Quinn says dryly, and Eliot scowls.

“Oh, hell no.” He sets his beer down on the coffee table and stands up. “We’re watching that. I’m gonna go to the goddamn rental store right now—have you seen Tombstone?”

Quinn blinks up at him. “No?”

“The Godfather?”

“Just half of Part 1,” Quinn admits.

“What is wrong with you,” Eliot grumbles, which Quinn would be offended by if he didn’t find this utterly hilarious. “Okay, get up, I’m not going by myself.”

“Are we having a movie night? Is that what this is?” Quinn asks, standing from his seat and following Eliot to the door. 

Eliot rolls his eyes. “This is for your education. As a criminal.”

“Right,” Quinn says, smirking as they step out of the door into the fresh London air that smells of rain. “Are we buying popcorn for this educational experience?”

“And more beer,” Eliot decides, leading the way towards the nearest rental store.

It’s only when they’re at the local Tesco that Quinn realizes this is the first time he’s gone out of the flat with Eliot for something that’s not a job. 

“Huh,” he says at the minor revelation.

Eliot pauses from where he’s been grabbing grabbing a six-pack. “What?”

Quinn shakes his head. “Nothing.” He can’t hide the grin on his face as he gently bumps a shoulder against Eliot’s. “Hey, should we get nachos?”

-

“Holy shit,” Quinn says after the credits start to roll on the TV screen. 

“I know, right?” Eliot grins at him, blue eyes gleaming with mirth. “Hell of a movie, isn’t it.”

Quinn drains the last of his beer. They’re two movies into the night and he’s gone through five beers. He’s feeling that heady buzz he usually never allows himself to indulge in. “This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Eliot rolls his eyes in a way that almost looks fond. “Don’t get me wrong, Tombstone is great, but this?” He holds up a copy of The Magnificent Seven. “This is gonna blow your damn mind.”

As much as Quinn loved the movie, he’s not talking about Tombstone when he says, “Never had something like this before.”

He’s never spent a night watching movies with somebody, sharing a bowl of popcorn and drinking beer. He’s never had a friend to do such a thing with before.

Quinn just might be imagining it, but he swears Eliot’s eyes soften just a little, like he’s caught on to what Quinn really means. “Well, you’re gonna have to get used to it.” Quinn thinks he sees the hint of a smile hiding behind the bottle of Eliot’s beer. “There’s gonna be way more of this.”

-

They go on a job in Greenwich and everything goes smoothly except for Quinn getting a split lip and a sprained wrist from a particularly angry Latvian who knows Muay Thai. Eliot shakes his head at him like he’s not particularly impressed, which Quinn ignores in favor of grabbing the diamond-studded tiara they’ve came here for. 

Eliot brings it up when they’re back in the flat, when he’s splinting Quinn’s wrist with clinical efficiency. “You could use some more variety with your fighting technique.”

Quinn bristles at that. “My fighting technique is fine.”

“You’re good,” Eliot says in a matter-of-fact tone, ripping the athletic tape off from the roll to finish the job. “But you could be better.”

“So what, are you gonna teach me?” Quinn asks, half-joking, but Eliot just raises an eyebrow at him, like that’s what he was planning from the very beginning. “Wait, seriously?”

“After your wrist heals up,” Eliot says. His hand is warm as it holds Quinn’s wrist in a gentle grip. Quinn doesn’t remember what it’s like to be touched gently. Does it always feel like this? Like something in his chest aches and his blood feels warm under his skin?

Quinn blames the aching warmth for his capitulation. “Okay, fine.”

“Good,” Eliot says, his tone brusque but his eyes soft as he lets go of Quinn’s wrist, and Quinn doesn’t know if he’s relieved or disappointed. 

-

Eliot is a ruthless teacher, and Quinn appreciates that, in a distant way that you appreciate a physical therapist forcing you through rehabilitation for a fractured ankle. By wanting to thank them for not going easy on you but also wanting to punch them in the face.

“You’re too impatient,” Eliot admonishes, standing over Quinn as he’s sprawled across the mat of the gym Eliot’s somehow procured for just the two of them. “Throwing the first punch isn’t a guarantee you’re gonna win, y’know.”

“I’m gonna send you to the dentist,” Quinn mutters darkly, taking Eliot’s hand so he can be pulled up to a standing position once more. 

Eliot smiles. He does that more often nowadays. Small and genuine and like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. “Sure, you can go ahead and try.”

-

“When did you learn this?” Quinn asks as he watches Eliot slice onions at an incredible speed. “Before the army?”

Eliot shakes his head. His hands move without pausing, dumping the onions into the pan on the stove, then grabbing the mushrooms that Quinn just washed. “Took home ec in high school, just enough to know how to use a knife. Didn’t learn how to really cook properly until a while ago.”

A while ago could mean a lot of things, but Quinn doesn’t ask for clarification. “Self-taught?”

This time, Eliot’s hands pause while dicing the mushrooms. “Not really.”

There are still invisible boundaries between them, space for secrets, things they won’t tell each other, and Quinn instinctively recognizes that is one of the things that Eliot is going to protect. Something precious. So he smoothly turns the conversation away from that particular topic. “So, what’s your take on fast food?”

“Good if you’ve got no other options and you’re in a hurry.” Quinn hides a smile as he finishes washing the asparagus at the pure disdain in Eliot’s voice. “Bad for every other occasion. Quinn, I swear, if you bring one more box of McNuggets into this place—”

“But I like chicken nuggets,” Quinn says, and grins at the murderous glare Eliot sends his way. “Well, if it bothers you so much, you should be feeding me more often.”

Eliot scowls. “You’re so fucking high maintenance.”

Even as he bitches about it, Eliot prepares two steaks, which turn out to be so delicious that Quinn suspects that if Eliot were to ever quit this particular career, he’d be pretty damn successful as a chef. Probably would have his own restaurant and everything.

Quinn wonders if he’d follow Eliot if he ever decided to leave the criminal life behind. Quinn doesn’t know how to live an honest life; he lost that life six years ago. He doesn’t know if he could live like a civilian. Doesn’t know if he’d be able to follow Eliot that far, or if Eliot would even want him to. 

He doesn’t know, but he could live with what they have right now. Bumping shoulders with Eliot as he assists him in the kitchen, talking about everything and nothing over their food, watching movies with him until late into the night—he could live the rest of his life like this, he thinks.

-

It all goes to hell when they go on a job in the Ladbroke Square Gardens near Notting Hill. 

The whole place is so picturesque and Quinn hates it, just a little, because the pristine white facades all feel like a lie. Nothing can be this clean, this flawless. The beautiful things are the flawed things, the things that have survived, chipped and cracked and broken but still persisting.

“You don’t like this place, do you.” Eliot looks faintly amused at Quinn’s eye-roll. “Yeah, it’s a bit much.”

“I kinda wanna throw paint onto the buildings,” Quinn mutters.

Eliot chuckles and pats Quinn’s back, squeezing his shoulder. He’s been doing a lot more of that, lately. Touching Quinn. Ever since they’ve started sparring together from time to time, both of them have started exchanging casual touches. A hand to the shoulder, brushing elbows together, tapping a hand to get the other’s attention. It’s nice. “Maybe we can egg them after the job’s over.”

Quinn’s about to ask Eliot if that’s the kind of thing he did growing up when he sees the glint of metal under the late afternoon sunlight from a rooftop and he hisses, “Duck!”

He tackles Eliot to cover behind a parked car just as a bullet hits the building they’d just been standing in front of. Quinn pulls out his gun and flicks the safety off, brain racing to think how they’ve been discovered. This isn’t a job that would have any competition; it’s supposed to be a simple breaking and entering to intimidate some rich guy. There’s absolutely no reason for anybody with a firearm to recognize them as hitters—he’s wearing a nondescript hoodie and denim jacket while Eliot’s wearing a sweatshirt and windbreaker—which means somebody came knowing who they were looking for.

“Knightley must’ve squealed,” Eliot mutters just as Quinn arrives at the same conclusion. 

“I’m gonna kick his teeth in.” Quinn peeks over the hood of the car to try get a look at the sniper. Then he notices that there’s another duo emerging from the greenery; tall, broad-shouldered men with very distinctive haircuts, advancing on their hiding spot with knives in each hand. Shit, this is serious. “Two British paratroopers with knives coming in hot. Sniper at our 2 o’clock, roughly 40 yards. I think I can get the sniper, but I’m gonna need you to hold off the paratroopers for a few seconds.”

“Make it count,” Eliot says, and then he’s springing from his crouch to hit the first man coming around the car. 

Eliot’s smart enough to make sure he keeps the paratroopers between him and the sniper to avoid being shot through the head, but that won’t last long. Quinn has to get the sniper off their back, preferably in a single shot, because people are going to come running if they hear gunshots. He needs to make this fast.

Quinn leaves Eliot to deal with the two men and pokes his head over the hood. He clocks the sniper’s exact location just as a bullet whizzes over his head, and he ducks back under. 

“Amateur,” He mutters under his breath, because he’d never miss a shot like that from this close. He takes a breath, focuses, and then rises up on his knees, taking a heartbeat to aim and then firing in the next.

The glint of the rifle disappears.

Done with his work, Quinn turns and finds Eliot knocking down the first paratrooper just as the second one throws himself bodily at Eliot, using his size and momentum to shove Eliot backwards. Eliot falters, losing his balance when he trips over the first paratrooper’s foot, and then he’s falling, his head thunking hard against the metal of the car as he goes down.

“Eliot?” Quinn asks, and Eliot doesn’t answer. Doesn’t move.

The paratrooper that tackled Eliot stands and makes a move towards Quinn, and Quinn shoots him straight through the forehead.

Distantly, he hears a scream, but he doesn’t care. All he can do is rush to Eliot’s side and put his hand to the side of Eliot’s neck, his thumb pressing over Eliot’s pulse point, and he feels his ribcage nearly collapse from relief when he feels Eliot’s heartbeat.

“Eliot, we gotta go,” Quinn says, and he slaps Eliot’s face. 

Eliot doesn’t respond to the first slap, but he does groan on the second one, and he’s opening his eyes blearily in a panic, right until he focuses on Quinn, and then the tension bleeds out. “We done here?”

Quinn nods and grabs Eliot by the arm and heaves him up. He can hear other voices from far away, windows opening as people shout in confusion. “We gotta run.”

As he steers them both towards the fastest exit route out of here, Eliot takes a glance at the two bodies sprawled across the sidewalk. He doesn’t slow down, because he knows better, but his voice is incredulous when he growls, “You killed a guy in the middle of a residential neighborhood in broad daylight?”

“Technically two, including the sniper, probably,” Quinn says as they run as fast as they can towards the larger streets so that they’ll be lost in the crowd. “And they were trying to kill us.”

In the distance, he hears the wail of police sirens, and they both stop talking after that.

-

When they reach the flat in Battersea, Eliot drags out his go bag. When he sees the look on Quinn’s face, he sighs and says, “It was about time we moved locations, anyway.”

Relief floods Quinn’s system. “Yeah, a change of scenery sounds nice.”

They’ve been in Battersea for eight months now. That’s a long time for people in their line of work to stay in a single place. Quinn certainly hasn’t stayed in one location for this long before, not since the name he used to have was discarded in favor of his current one. It’s almost a shame; Quinn is going to miss living here. 

“You shouldn’t have killed that guy,” Eliot says as they wipe the flat clean. He doesn’t sound disapproving or disappointed. Simply pragmatic.

Quinn knows that. He could’ve easily taken the guy down without using his gun, without drawing so much attention. He could’ve simply shot the guy through his kneecaps and left him bleeding on the sidewalk. It would’ve been cleaner that way. 

But Eliot had been on the ground, not moving, not responding, and all of Quinn’s logic had fled him. He can’t give a good reason for what he did. He doesn’t know which would be worse to tell Eliot: that he panicked, or that he’d forgotten rationality in favor of blinding fury.

In the end, he says, “I wanted to.”

Eliot gives him an unreadable look, but he nods when he meets Quinn’s eyes. “Alright.”

That’s it. Eliot doesn’t bring it up again. Doesn’t complain or ask or prod. He simply finishes cleaning the place with Quinn as they discuss where to head next.

Eventually, when they’re ensconced in a cab and on their way to the airport, Eliot says, “Thanks.” He doesn’t look at Quinn, but his hand finds Quinn’s knee and squeezes it. “For wanting to.”

Quinn feels a lump rise in his throat. He can’t find the words to reply, so he answers by covering Eliot’s hand with his own, squeezing tight.

They stay silent for the rest of the ride.

-

They fly to Chicago. Quinn has a safehouse there in a modern apartment building: third floor, good view, and a comfortable couch. Quinn hasn’t been here in nearly a year, so he airs the place out and gets fresh blankets from the linen closet while Eliot vacuums the place. Quinn idly makes a mental note to buy more cooking implements and make a spare set of keys.

It’s nothing like the flat in Battersea, but Quinn doesn’t care as long as Eliot is there. Eliot, who is looking at the tiny kitchen with an unimpressed look. Eliot, who flew across the Atlantic Ocean with him to sleep on Quinn’s couch. Eliot, who Quinn would kill for.

It’s terrifying, Quinn thinks, to realize that he _needs_ Eliot. That he can’t ever return to a life before Eliot Spencer.

When Eliot bumps his shoulder against his, telling him that they need to go grocery shopping, Quinn blurts, “If you die on me, I’m gonna kill you.”

Eliot blinks, eyes wide with surprise as he stares at Quinn. Then, he starts laughing, loud and free, and Quinn can’t find it in himself to be offended when Eliot looks so damn happy. 

“Yeah, okay.” Eliot grins at him, and Quinn feels his whole chest go tight at the sight. “I’ll do what I can.” 

“Whatever it takes,” Quinn demands.

Eliot’s grin goes crooked as he tilts his head the slightest bit to the side. His voice is soft when he promises, “Whatever it takes.”

-

It’s only later that night, after dinner and washing the dished and a rented movie, that Eliot says, “Same goes for you.” He meets Quinn’s eyes and they’re completely serious. “Whatever it takes.”

“Of course,” Quinn says, because he’s always done that to ensure his survival. He’ll do whatever it takes to keep himself alive. 

But he knows, deep down, that this isn’t the only promise he’s making. 

Looking at Eliot’s blue eyes and soft hair curling at his cheekbones, Quinn adds his own silent addendum to his promise. _Whatever it takes to keep you alive._


	2. Chapter 2

Six weeks into their stay in Chicago, Quinn checks the date on the newspaper and says, “Huh, it’s today.”

“What’s today?” Eliot asks absent-mindedly from where he’s sharpening his knives at the dining table.

“The day I technically died,” Quinn says, and Eliot pauses. 

Quinn never really told Eliot about his past; Eliot never asked and Quinn had gotten so accustomed to secrecy that it had been natural as breathing to skirt his way around the topic and evade any mention of his childhood. He doesn’t know why now, of all times, he’s suddenly decided to let Eliot in on a secret he’s kept for this long, but it’s already out of his mouth. And strangely, it doesn’t bother him.

“Is that when you became ‘Quinn?’” Eliot asks, sounding a little curious. 

“Yeah.” Quinn should feel panicked. Or maybe relieved. All he feels is a sense of calm. “Seven years ago today.”

Eliot raises an eyebrow, but he doesn’t comment on how young Quinn must have been when his death was faked. Instead, he says, “So it ain’t the day you died. It’s the day you were born.”

Quinn snorts at that. “That’s unexpectedly poetic of you.”

“Fuck you,” Eliot says in a mild tone. “I saw your passport. It lists today as your birth date.” He resumes sharpening his knives. “Thought it was just a random date you chose for a fake identity, but I guess it wasn’t random.”

It’s weird that Eliot remembers the most random details about Quinn sometimes. It’s even weirder that Quinn feels a little frisson of delight every time Eliot demonstrates that knowledge. Maybe this is what it’s like to have somebody actually care about you. “It was easy, that’s all. Nothing symbolic or deeper than that.”

“Sure.” Eliot’s eyes flick up to fleetingly meet Quinn’s. “So, Quinn’s your real name?”

It’s hard to define what counts as real, in Quinn’s opinion, but this is the name he was given by the woman who brought him into this world, and it’s the only one that really counts. Who he was before this life doesn’t matter. “It’s as real as it gets for me.”

Eliot hums. “Alright.”

They lapse back into silence, Eliot focusing on his knives while Quinn reads through the rest of the morning paper. Quinn marvels at how he just revealed a part of himself that he’s hidden away for so long, and somehow nothing has changed. It feels _right_ , to share this with Eliot, and Quinn thinks that with enough time, he could share the rest of himself, too.

-

Later, Quinn looks down at the dining table that’s overloaded with his favorite foods, from smoked salmon crostinis to tagliatelle bolognese to roast duck, and he can’t help but smirk at Eliot and ask, “What’s for dessert?”

“Blueberry cheesecake tarts,” Eliot says as he stands on the other side of the table, crossing his arms and daring Quinn to make a sarcastic comment.

Instead of making fun of Eliot for being a big old softy, Quinn pulls his chair out and takes a seat, propping his chin up on one hand and looking up at Eliot with a grin. “I take it that this is my birthday present?”

Eliot makes a face, which has Quinn straightening back up. “Wait, this isn’t it?”

“It ain’t a big deal.” Eliot grumbles as he turns and opens a cupboard, fetching something hidden there. “Just figured you could use new ones.”

It’s a pair of brown leather gloves. Quinn rubs a finger over the smooth leather, then pulls them on. The insides are criminally soft, probably lined with something ridiculous like cashmere or the like, and they fit Quinn’s hands perfectly. They’re a huge improvement from the worn, cheap gloves he’s been using for the past two years. He’s touched that Eliot paid enough attention to know that Quinn needed replacements.

“They’re perfect,” Quinn murmurs, smiling softly before he can stop himself. He doesn’t _want_ to stop himself. 

Eliot clears his throat and takes the seat opposite of Quinn, grabbing the bottle of wine. His voice is gruff but the tips of his ears are slightly red when he says, “Food’s gonna go cold.”

Quinn takes the gloves off with care and deposits them on the kitchen counter where they won’t get stained by food, then grabs the wine glass that Eliot just filled. He doesn’t clink it against Eliot’s glass, and Eliot doesn’t wish him a happy birthday, but after he’s polished off his blueberry cheesecake tart, he nudges his foot against Eliot’s under the table and smiles at him. “Thanks.”

A corner of Eliot’s mouth twitches upwards, his eyes softening the slightest bit. “You’re welcome.”

-

Quinn gets a job. Eliot doesn’t need to be there for it, but he insists on coming along for the ride anyway, citing that he’s never seen Quinn’s marksmanship with a rifle before and wants to see it for himself.

Sometime during their fifth month in London, Quinn had taken a quick trip to Munich and swung by his safehouse to pick up his sniper rifle and bring it back to Battersea, but there hadn’t been any opportunity to actually use it in Eliot’s presence until now. Quinn doesn’t understand why Eliot would want to witness him assassinating somebody when Eliot himself isn’t a huge fan of killing people, but he figures that Eliot’s a grown man and can make his own choices, and Quinn isn’t particularly intent on hiding this part of himself from Eliot anyway.

He’s not sure if there’s _any_ part of himself that he wants to hide from Eliot, but he ignores that thought.

So he sets up on the top of a building across from Millennium Park, where the mark will be eating lunch, and through his scope he watches Eliot sit on one of the available benches. Eliot claims that he can be backup in case something goes wrong on Quinn’s end, which is a laughable concept, but if Eliot needs the thinly veiled excuse to watch Quinn’s handiwork, he can have it.

Sixteen minutes after noon, Quinn settles his sights on the mark. The park is bustling with people: families, office workers out for lunch, and tourists. Just enough of a crowd to keep him on his toes, but not enough to be a problem. 

He breathes in, then breathes out. Narrows his focus down until the only thing in the world is the view down his scope and his finger on the trigger. 

Just as the mark takes his second bite of his hot dog, Quinn shoots him through the head. 

Nobody even realizes what’s happened for a good ten seconds. Then the people nearest by start to scream, and then the panic starts to spread. Quinn doesn’t bother watching any of it. He simply checks that the mark is down, then takes a moment to see Eliot stand up and make his way out of the park as people start to shriek and flee. 

Quinn disassembles his rifle and swings his rifle case—which is masquerading as a guitar case—over his shoulder, then makes his exit. It’s not that hard to exit the building long before the police sirens start approaching. By the time the police are on the scene, Quinn is long gone.

-

“That was pretty impressive,” Eliot comments when they meet up at the rendezvous point several blocks away. He sounds like he means it.

Quinn shrugs, even if he’s inwardly preening. “Made harder shots before.”

“Which one was the hardest?” Eliot asks as they make their way back to the apartment. 

Quinn thinks of looking down the scope at a young man who had been laughing, holding the hand of his young child with one hand and holding the hand of his wife in the other. The man had been making dirty deals and somebody had wanted to send a warning, so Quinn had taken the job. He remembers watching the happy family, just for a moment, before he’d adjusted his aim and shot the innocent wife.

Instead of talking about any of that, he says, “Budapest, two years ago. Was windy as hell and I had to shoot a target who was in a moving car from a mile out. Sat in the freezing cold for two hours to make that shot.”

“Moving vehicles are a bitch,” Eliot agrees.

“What about you?” Quinn hasn’t ever asked Eliot about his relationship with firearms until now. “You a good shot?”

Eliot doesn’t falter as he matches Quinn’s footsteps from beside him. “Used to be.” He shrugs in that deliberately casual manner he adopts whenever he’s talking about something that bothers him but he doesn’t want to admit it. “I’m better with a knife, anyway.”

“You can cut an onion in two seconds and eight yakuza in four.” Quinn bumps his shoulder against Eliot’s, and the near-imperceptible tension in Eliot melts away. “You’re definitely better with a knife than I am.”

-

Quinn brings his guitar out from where it was wasting away in the bedroom, since the poor thing deserves to at least be looked at by someone else, and leaves it leaning up against a corner of the living room. It’s nothing special; just an ordinary acoustic guitar that Quinn bought a few years back at a decent price. It adds a touch of warmth and something human to the otherwise bland interior, though, so he’s content to let it sit there. 

Eliot stares at it for a long time before he asks, his eyes still intent on the instrument, “You play the guitar?”

“Actually, no.” Quinn shrugs. “I know how the chords work and I can do some basic stuff, but I can’t really play it. I bought it so I could customize the case, to be honest.”

“For your rifle,” Eliot realizes, and Quinn hums an affirmative. “You bought an entire guitar just to get the case?”

“I thought it’d be neat to have one.” Quinn shrugs. He’d been sixteen and impressionable. “Didn’t have the patience to learn how to really play it, though.”

Eliot rolls his eyes. “Of course you didn’t. That guitar is wasted on you.”

“What,” Quinn says, feeling more amused than annoyed by the jibe, “can you play it, then?”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Quinn blinks.

“Seriously?”

“As long as it’s nothing complicated,” Eliot grumbles, sounding almost embarrassed about it. There’s a hint of something else in his tone, though. Something like nostalgia.

Quinn goes to grab the guitar, then shoves it towards Eliot. “C’mon, I wanna hear you play.”

Eliot sputters. “I don’t—is this thing even tuned?”

“I might have a tuner somewhere,” Quinn mutters, going to the bedroom to hunt it down. If he doesn’t have one, he’ll go buy one. The idea of Eliot playing a guitar like some country singer is too fun to pass up. 

It turns out to be pointless, not only because Quinn apparently doesn’t own a tuner in the first place, but also because he comes back to the living room to find Eliot on the couch, easily tuning the guitar himself by ear. Quinn is half-impressed and half-aggravated that apparently Eliot has yet another thing he’s ridiculously skilled at. 

“Haven’t done this in years,” Eliot says under his breath, fingertips strumming the guitar strings. 

Quinn takes a seat on the armchair perpendicular to the couch and watches the way Eliot balances the guitar on one denim-clad thigh, the sleeves of his flannel shirt rolled up to his elbows, and hides a grin at how Eliot looks like a stereotypical country singer. All he’s missing is the cowboy hat.

His amusement fades away when Eliot starts strumming the guitar in earnest, playing chords with deft fingers, filling the apartment with music that reminds Quinn of a lost childhood.

Then Eliot starts singing. “ _Mama, take this badge off me, I can’t use it anymore_.”

The sound of Eliot’s voice steals the breath from Quinn’s lungs. He’s always known that Eliot has a nice voice, but like this, crooning to the tune of the guitar and full of heartfelt emotion that Eliot never usually shows, it’s beautiful. And there’s a haunting quality to the song, the way Eliot sings like he means every word. 

“ _I feel I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door—_ ”

Of course Eliot would choose this song. Of course he would. It’s perfect for him.

Eliot sings the whole song all the way through, and Quinn doesn’t take his eyes off of him for even a single moment. There’s something deeply honest about this experience, like Eliot’s cracked himself open to let this song out of his own damn heart, sharing a part of himself with Quinn that the rest of the world doesn’t get to see. Quinn doesn’t want to miss even a second of it.

Once Eliot’s voice trails off, the last chords of the song fading into the silence, Quinn clears his throat. Eliot isn’t looking at him, but Quinn is fairly certain that all of Eliot’s attention is trained on Quinn’s upcoming response.

“That was pretty good.” He keeps his words honest, just this side of sincere, but he keeps his tone light enough that the mood doesn’t turn too serious. “The guitar’s definitely not wasted on you.”

“Don’t expect me to be takin’ requests,” Eliot says, stroking the wood of the guitar once, then setting it down. 

“As long as you don’t ask me to sing along with you,” Quinn says. He knows for a fact that his singing is terrible. “But if you ever wanna use the guitar again, feel free.”

Eliot doesn’t exactly say that he’ll take him up on the offer, but he doesn’t outright reject it, either. 

Quinn figures that’s good enough.

-

Eliot is, Quinn realizes one night when they’re on a job that requires them to stake out a bar for a few hours, incredibly popular with women. There’s a natural charm to him, and his flirting is pretty damn good, even if it’s a little unpolished. And he’s physically attractive, now that Quinn’s looking at him with a critical eye. 

“Want some tips?” Quinn asks in a low voice.

“From you?” Eliot asks, raising an incredulous eyebrow, which Quinn is a little offended by. Sure, he doesn’t have Eliot’s inherent charisma or life experience, but Quinn knows all the little tricks. He’s been taught how to make people like him and trust him. He knows a hundred tiny ways to seduce a mark, and he can already pinpoint the parts where Eliot can use some improvement.

“Let’s make a bet,” Quinn says. “After this job, you do exactly what I tell you to do, and if you score a date within ten minutes, you owe me one.”

Eliot actually snorts, but he’s almost as bad as Quinn is when it comes to resisting a challenge, so he says, “Alright. You’re on.”

-

Eliot comes back to the apartment the next morning reeking of perfume and dark marks creeping up his neck, right above his shirt collar. “Okay, so I definitely owe you one.”

Quinn smirks at him from over his coffee mug. 

“If you’re so good at the whole flirting thing,” Eliot says twenty minutes later, after he’s showered and in fresh clothes, cooking breakfast while Quinn sits at the dining table, “why do you never go out for some fun?”

The question makes Quinn pause. He’s not exactly scared of Eliot’s response—he has a pretty strong suspicion that Eliot’s preferences aren’t limited to women—but the hard part is explaining why he doesn’t seek out companionship in the first place. 

Quinn starts with the easiest answer. “I don’t like women.”

“Yeah, so?” Eliot slides an omelet onto a plate and brings it to Quinn. “You’re obviously good enough to find a guy who swings that way, too.”

Sighing, Quinn pokes at his omelet. “I don’t like having sex with other people.”

That makes Eliot pause. “Huh.” He doesn’t sound judgmental when he asks, “Like, at all?”

“I like sex,” Quinn clarifies, and wonders how the hell the details of his sex life has suddenly become something he discusses with somebody else. But then again, this is Eliot. He’s not just somebody else. “I just don’t trust anybody else enough to enjoy it.”

Vulnerable. That’s how sex makes him feel. Unless he’s using it as a tool to gain access to a mark, in which case it’s fine. But sex just for recreational purposes is hard. It feels incredibly good, but it also feels like all his defenses are stripped away, leaving him wide open for somebody to take advantage of. It’s too intimate.

He doesn’t know how to explain any of that to Eliot, though. 

Eliot seems to get it anyway. “Hard to enjoy having sex with anybody when it feels like you’re giving away a weak spot.” He shrugs. “It’s why I don’t sleep with guys most of the time.”

That last part is a very specific kind of intel that Quinn can recognize as an offering. Repayment for Quinn’s honesty. He feels something uncoil in his gut, a tension he hadn’t even been aware of bleeding out of him as he starts digging into his omelet properly. “Ever slept with a woman who could kill you?”

Eliot sets down a plate of omelet for himself and drags his chair back to take a seat. He grins as he picks up his cutlery. “I actually have a funny story about that.”

-

They take a job in Washington DC that takes four days. Their hotel room is, for once, a luxurious one because they have to attend an actual charity ball held in the hotel’s ballroom. Which is good, because they need the open space of the sitting area, cleared of the chairs and table, to practice dancing. 

Rather, Quinn has to _teach_ Eliot how to dance.

“I can’t believe you don’t know how to even do a basic waltz,” Quinn teases as they go over the steps together. 

“Not all of us took lessons on how to blend in with the fancy folk,” Eliot grouses, but he’s a good pupil. Dancing isn’t that far from fighting, and Eliot is good at the latter. It isn’t hard for him to pick up quickly on the former.

“That’s right, okay, now turn here.” Quinn murmurs instructions into Eliot’s ear as they waltz around the room to the music coming from the hotel room’s radio. “Lead with your left foot.”

It’s not easy, because Eliot is learning how to lead and Quinn is trying to instruct him from a following position—not to mention that it’s slightly awkward for Eliot to execute the underarm turn when Quinn is taller—but soon enough their feet are gliding over the carpet in perfect synchronization. 

“Ready to learn the foxtrot?” Quinn asks once he’s sure Eliot’s perfected the waltz. They’re still moving as he speaks, pressed close together, warmth trapped between their bodies as they dance together to the soft music. 

Eliot sighs, but Quinn thinks he catches the hint of a smile curling up his mouth. “Sure, why not.”

-

The next day, Quinn sticks close to the mark while he watches Eliot dance gracefully across the ballroom floor. It seems almost effortless, the way he fluidly moves through the waltz steps, twirling his giggling partner gracefully. Quinn is proud of him.

But there’s a small part of him that’s disappointed that he can’t go ask Eliot for a dance. It would be fun, he thinks. 

He spent hours dancing with Eliot last night. There’s no reason to feel like he’s missing out on anything. Quinn shakes off the weird, bereft sensation and gets to work.

-

They’re on a retrieval job in Milwaukee when Quinn gets shot.

It happens so fast that Quinn doesn’t even realize what’s happened until he’s down on the ground, blinking up at the ceiling of the warehouse they’re in. It takes him a few moments to realize that his chest hurts with that familiar burn and tear of a bullet. He’d barely caught a glimpse of the shooter, but he knows that it must’ve been one of the mobsters that Eliot and he didn’t get to knock out yet.

He instinctively presses a hand to the entry wound, and he absent-mindedly notes that the shot must’ve missed his heart by two inches. A terrifyingly close call, if he thinks about it hard enough, but at the moment he’s simply glad that the bullet didn’t hit anything vital enough for him to need extensive rehab. He hates physical therapy. 

Just as he’s started to struggle upright, Eliot leans over him with a furious look on his face.

“Quinn,” Eliot says in a tone that Quinn doesn’t ever remember hearing from him before. His voice is tight and brittle, like he’s about to break any second, and Quinn doesn’t like that. He doesn’t ever want Eliot to sound like that. “Quinn, can you move?”

“Think so,” Quinn says, and Eliot helps him sit up. Now that he’s upright and seeing Eliot’s face from up close, he realizes that Eliot’s not furious; he’s _terrified_. “Oh.”

“Let’s get out of here.” Eliot’s voice is still tight enough to snap at any second as he pulls Quinn up to a standing position.

Quinn almost feels bad for pointing out, “We need to get the package.”

“Fuck the package,” Eliot snarls.

“If I got shot, I am damn well going to get paid for it,” Quinn hisses at him. “Get the damn package. I’ll cover the exit and make sure we don’t get any more surprises.”

Eliot huffs, but clearly he’s calmed down a little, because the barely controlled terror on his face has loosened up and turned into irritation instead. “Fine.”

During the ten minutes it takes for Eliot to go find the package hidden amongst the many boxes in the warehouse, Quinn leans against the doorway of their exit and breathes through the pain, counting the seconds and keeping an ear out for any other incoming surprises. Even so, his thoughts drift, and they focus specifically on the mobster sprawled on the concrete floor thirty feet away. He’s the one that shot Quinn. And he’s most definitely dead. The unnatural angle that his head is twisted at proves it.

In all the months that Quinn’s spent with Eliot, on all the jobs they’ve gone together, Eliot hasn’t killed anybody. Quinn’s definitely killed more than a handful, but Eliot’s refrained from it. Until today.

Quinn doesn’t know how he feels about this. 

It’s only when Eliot comes rushing back with the package, concern flashing across his face at the sight of blood soaking Quinn’s shirt, that the warmth of knowing that Eliot killed a man just because he shot Quinn blooms in his chest. Or maybe that’s just the sensation of him bleeding out.

“You didn’t need to kill him,” Quinn says, and he hopes he doesn’t sound as fond as he feels.

Eliot grunts and pulls Quinn tight against his side, herding him out. “Wanted to.”

Maybe Quinn should feel bad for feeling touched about Eliot murdering people for him. Maybe he should feel guilty about the fact that Eliot went against his own rules to kill a man just because of him. But all he can feel is a little delirious sort of satisfaction, a twisted kind of happiness that Eliot _cares_ enough about him to go against his own principles. 

It’s the blood loss, he decides. That’s the only explanation for why he feels this way.

-

He doesn’t have the excuse of blood loss when he wakes up back in the apartment in Chicago, his chest bandaged and sore as hell. Eliot’s asleep on the bed next to him, laying on his side facing Quinn, as if he was watching over him and then dozed off. Quinn stares at Eliot for a while, something nameless and tender squirming in his chest as he looks at the dark eyelashes fanned out against soft cheeks and hair that’s been growing longer lately, curling around a stubbled jaw. 

Here, in the golden morning sunlight filtering through the blinds, Eliot sound asleep beside him like they aren’t two trained hitters that could easily kill each other, Quinn feels safer than he’s ever felt before. 

Eliot killed a man for him. Brought him back here and fixed him up. Kept watch over him through the night. As if he’s Quinn’s murderous guardian angel. And now he’s asleep, right here in Quinn’s bed. 

And Quinn, in this moment, trusts Eliot with his entire goddamn heart. 

-

Eliot’s not the only one who can memorize a birth date from a passport. When Quinn brings it up that morning over breakfast, Eliot frowns.

“Yeah, it’s my birthday.” He shrugs. “But I ain’t big on celebrating it.”

Quinn raises an eyebrow. “We celebrated mine.”

“Yeah, but you turned twenty. That’s a milestone. I’m turning twenty-five.” Eliot stabs at his salad and grumbles. “Who gives a shit about twenty-five?”

“It means you turned another year older without getting killed, I guess,” Quinn deadpans.

Eliot snorts. “I’ll start celebrating when I hit fifty. Now _that’s_ a hell of a milestone to hit in our line of work.”

Quinn recalls Eliot’s words from a long time ago. _Living long isn’t easy in this line of work._ He knows that Eliot promised him to do whatever it takes to survive, but he gets an uneasy feeling that Eliot thinks it’s inevitable that he dies young. 

“I’ll make sure to throw you a hell of a party on your fiftieth.” He says it as a joke, but he catches the way Eliot blinks rapidly, his gaze flickering from Quinn to his food, like he was caught entirely off-guard. Quinn re-examines what he just said and realizes the implication of what he said: the natural assumption that they’ll still be together twenty-five years into the future. 

It’s a hell of an assumption to make, because it means that they’d both have to be alive, for one thing. And they’d have to not be in prison. Plus, they’d have to be still on good terms. They’d still have to be, for better or worse, partners in crime. 

And Quinn wants that. He doesn’t care that there are too many factors to account for, that it’s unlikely that what they have right now will survive that long. Right now, he wants to place his bets on this future.

“I’ll even get you strippers,” he says with a grin, challenging Eliot to reject this.

Eliot blinks, slow and thoughtful, then huffs and rolls his eyes. “No strippers. Just make sure the catering meets my standards.”

“Your standards are so damn high though.” Quinn hides a smile behind his coffee mug. “Getting high-end catering for an event is gonna be a bitch.”

“Don’t get why it has to be an event with other people.” Eliot shoves a cherry tomato into his mouth, chews and swallows. His eyes meet Quinn’s steadily. “You’re the only one that needs to be there.”

It’s the matter-of-fact tone that really hits home. The way that Eliot doesn’t make a grandiose statement about it or even shy away from the words. That’s how Quinn knows that for Eliot, there is no other future without him. Just like Quinn, he’s hanging all his hopes on that singular possibility, and that gives Quinn the hope—and isn’t that a fucking terrifying thought, because Quinn hasn’t hoped for anything for so many years now—that what they have will last for as long as they live.

-

Eliot says they shouldn’t celebrate his birthday because it isn’t a big deal, but Quinn thinks it’s only fair that they do, given how Quinn’s birthday went. So they compromise with a decent dinner at one of the nicer restaurants in the city that Eliot wanted to try out. 

When they get back to the apartment, Quinn pulls out something he’s prepared since a couple weeks ago.

“Is that a Shun knife?” Eliot asks when Quinn hands it over. It’s a mercilessly sharp chef’s knife with a Damascus design on the metal. It’s just as lethal as any of the knives Eliot owns, and it’s meant for cooking, but there’s a little bonus, engraved elegantly at the side of the blade. Eliot laughs, disbelieving as he rubs a fingertip over his initials in the metal. “I thought they didn’t do customized work.”

Quinn shoves his hands into the pockets of his pants and shrugs. “Yeah, well, not for anybody.”

Eliot handles the knife almost reverently, his fingers dancing over the blade as he hesitates. Quinn is expecting an awkward expression of gratitude, but what comes out of Eliot’s mouth next is completely different.

“On my eighteenth birthday,” Eliot finally says, “I had a fight with my old man. He wanted me to stay home and take over the store.” He swallows. “He ran this hole-in-the-wall hardware store, and he wanted me there. But I wanted to go out. I wanted to get out and change the goddamn world, so we yelled at each other until I said everything I could think of to fucking hurt him.”

Quinn stands very still, his eyes not on the knife in Eliot’s hands, but on the mournful, wrecked look on Eliot’s face. 

“Then I left and joined the Army, and look at how _that_ turned out,” Eliot spits, like he hates what that turned him into. “So yeah, I’ve never had a birthday that mattered ever since then, because what’s the fucking point of getting older when nobody else gives a damn about how old you are. When all they care about is if you can shoot a guy on orders or if you’re willing to be paid to slice somebody’s throat. There’s no goddamn point—”

Quinn gently takes the knife from Eliot’s hands and sets it on the kitchen counter. He doesn’t know what he’s doing; he’s never done something like this, even as a child, but he steps into Eliot’s space, crowding against him, close enough to feel Eliot’s breath against his skin. 

“I care,” Quinn says, his heart in his throat, his hands hovering over Eliot’s hips, unsure of whether he’s welcome here. “About you getting older. About you being alive another year. And if you don’t wanna do birthdays, that’s okay. Eliot, I don’t give a fuck about anything else as long as you’re alive.”

Arms come around his shoulders, pulling him in the last couple inches, and Eliot’s hugging him tight, burying his face in the side of Quinn’s neck, and Quinn instinctively wraps his arms around Eliot’s waist, squeezing him and feeling Eliot’s ribcage expand with every breath he takes. Eliot is so warm, radiating heat even when he’s still wearing an undershirt and a flannel shirt and Quinn’s wearing a jacket. Quinn holds onto Eliot and lets the warmth overtake him.

“Didn’t mean to unload on you like that,” Eliot says, voice scratchy and wavering the tiniest bit. “Just, it felt like lying when I said it ain’t a big deal. It is. Just, not in a good way.” He hugs Quinn a little tighter. “Don’t wanna lie to you.”

“That’s okay.” Quinn breathes in, breathes out. He understands. He’s tired of lying, too. “We don’t have to tell each other everything, but. No lying, okay? If we’re gonna say something, it’s gotta be the truth.”

Eliot exhales against Quinn’s bare skin, and a shudder runs through Quinn’s entire body. 

“Yeah.” Eliot clutches Quinn just a little tighter. “No lies. Not between us.”

After they reach that agreement, they don’t talk for a while. But they stand there for a little longer. Just holding on to each other.

-

They relocate to Vancouver shortly after that, clearing out the Chicago apartment and putting their sparse belongings that they can’t take in a storage unit. Quinn regretfully leaves the guitar behind, but Eliot takes the chef’s knife Quinn gifted him, which somehow makes him feel better.

Vancouver has another one of Quinn’s safehouses. It’s a small house built at the edge of the city, with a bigger living room and a better kitchen than the Chicago apartment, much to Eliot’s approval. The couch isn’t very comfortable though, and Quinn immediately goes looking for the nearest furniture store. Eliot says something about how he was in the army for fuck’s sake, _Quinn, I could sleep on the goddamn floor, we don’t need a new couch_.

Quinn promptly ignores him and drags Eliot with him to an IKEA. He could easily order a nice couch off of a catalogue from a high-end store, but he’s never really bought furniture before—all his safehouses so far were already furnished when he acquired them—and he thinks it could be fun. He’s proven right when he gets to watch Eliot begrudgingly sit on every couch available in the place, scowling the whole time. A salesperson spots them and comes over to ask if they’re roommates, which is close enough, and subtly encourages them towards the expensive products once she senses that cost isn’t an issue for them. 

“We ain’t paying three-thousand bucks for a couch,” Eliot hisses at Quinn. They’re looking at a gorgeous couch made of smooth, black leather. It unfolds into a pretty comfortable bed, too. Quinn thinks it’d match the interior of the house rather nicely. “We’re probably gonna have to leave in a few months anyway.”

“We literally got paid ten times the amount of this couch two weeks ago,” Quinn says in a low voice so that the salesperson standing a fair distance away—not enough to intrude, but close by enough that she can pounce and recommend whichever couch they look at for more than twenty seconds—can’t hear. “And even if we leave, you never know when we’ll be back. This is an _investment_.”

Eliot, who is sometimes weirdly stingy for a criminal who gets regularly paid in four figures and above, just heaves an aggravated sigh. “Fine.”

When they turn back from their little huddle, the salesperson gives them a predatory customer service smile. 

“We’d like this one, please,” Quinn says, and it’s funny, now that he thinks about it. How it’s become normal to regularly refer to themselves in plural form. _We_. Like they’ve somehow become a unit together. It’s true, he supposes. They go on jobs together, even on the ones when it’s a solo gig, simply to keep watch or hang around as backup. They eat every meal together. And apparently, they go furniture shopping together.

It’s only when Quinn’s signed off on getting the couch delivered to the house and turns to find Eliot pensively looking at a dishwasher that he realizes, _shit, we’ve become domesticated_.

-

They end up also getting a dishwasher, a new TV, and a set of cookware made from stainless steel.

“We need to take a job,” Quinn announces as soon as they’re back at the house, and promptly groans on the inside because he’s doing the plural pronoun thing again. “I need to shoot somebody.”

Eliot gives him a perplexed look. “Right now?”

“Yes, right now.” Quinn picks up his burner phone and calls up one of the local agents he knows. “And no cooking today. There’s a good Chinese takeout place a block from here.”

Eliot grumbles, but he goes to fetch his knives anyway, and Quinn has a moment of insanity where he thinks that maybe they should have bought a set of drawers for Eliot’s things, and then he smacks a hand over his face just as the agent answers the call.

-

They find a gym that’s willing to let them pay a generous sum to use it after hours whenever they like and spend at least one night a week sparring. It’s good for the both of them in terms of both stress relief and also keeping themselves on the top of their game. They’re fairly evenly matched, even if Eliot wins more often by a decent margin.

Sometimes, after Quinn’s been swept off his feet and knocked flat onto the mats, he looks up to see Eliot grinning down at him, his hair clinging to his sweat-slick cheeks, bright blue eyes full of triumphant mirth, and something in his chest stutters.

-

There’s a job where they need to be subtle. They’re supposed to steal some time-sensitive intel from a wealthy business magnate’s well-guarded home, and they need to make sure that the man doesn’t immediately realize he’s been robbed. 

Between the two of them, there are half a dozen plans for how to acquire the intel, but they’re all immediately discarded when the mark’s eyes land on Quinn at the invite-only gala they’ve snuck into. Quinn’s wearing a charcoal suit and tie over a black shirt, and he’s gelled his curls back to keep them from falling into his eyes. The mark rakes his eyes over Quinn’s body, and that’s the moment Quinn knows how to get into the mark’s home. 

Eliot is forty feet away, watching Quinn as he weaves his way through the gala guests and wanders into the mark’s vicinity. He waits for the mark to strike up a conversation, then gauges the mark’s reactions to each of Quinn’s actions. The mark’s interest grows every time Quinn bites his lip and plays shy, just a touch of coyness lingering in the way he ducks his head and looks at the mark through his lashes. It’s not hard to fake his interest; the mark is handsome, even if he’s a little older than Quinn’s usual preferences. 

Just as the mark leads the way out of the place, Quinn sends Eliot a wink.

-

Quinn’s had sex with marks before. Not very often, because it’s rare that he needs to go that far, but it’s a method he’s not afraid to use. And as he’s told Eliot before, he likes sex. He just doesn’t like having control taken away from him.

With a mark, there’s always a sense of control. That hidden objective that only Quinn is aware of. It means he’s not there to enjoy himself, but to achieve something else.

Quinn hasn’t used sex as a weapon for a while. Not at all, since he met Eliot. Maybe he’s gotten rusty. Or maybe there’s something awkward about coming back to the house in the middle of the night, sheaf of papers in hand, a bite mark darkening on his neck, peeking its way above his collar. There’s something restless in the pit of his stomach when he sees Eliot still awake and waiting for him.

Eliot’s on the couch, his own suit jacket flung over the back of it and his tie undone.His hair is disheveled, like he’s been running his hands through them, and Quinn feels a sharp pang in his chest when Eliot asks in a completely neutral tone, “Had fun?”

“I’ve definitely had worse nights,” Quinn says. He doesn’t want to tell Eliot that he spent the entire time in the mark’s bed thinking that sparring with Eliot would’ve been more fun. It’s not that the sex had been boring, per se, but that nothing could quite replace the thrill of knocking Eliot onto his ass and pinning him down on the floor. 

Telling that to Eliot feels dangerous, somehow. So he doesn’t.

“Good job,” Eliot says, finally done with skimming the papers. “I’ll go deliver these. You take a shower.”

Quinn blinks. He’d thought they’d drop off the goods together, like they usually do.

As if he’s read Quinn’s mind, Eliot rolls his eyes. “You wanna go see the client while you look like you just got mauled by a werewolf?”

“It doesn’t look that bad,” Quinn argues, but he would like to scrub himself clean, now that he thinks about it. “Okay, fine. Go drop the package off.”

Eliot huffs, but he grabs his suit jacket and heads for the door, papers in hand. It’s only when he’s gone that Quinn realizes that he was expecting a different kind of reaction from Eliot. That he’d _wanted_ a different reaction. He doesn’t even know what kind; he simply feels a little disappointed and relieved all at once.

Quinn’s had sex with marks before. He’s never been ashamed of that. 

But as he steps out of the shower and sees the bite mark on his neck, for the first time, Quinn wishes he’d gone about this job in a different way.

-

It happens during one of those nights when they’re watching movies, sitting together on their expensive couch and sharing a bowl of popcorn and a six-pack of beers. They’re watching a stupid spy movie, not taking a single moment of it seriously, when Quinn opens his mouth and says, “My dad always thought my mom was a civilian.”

Eliot doesn’t pause the movie, but he does lower the volume and turn to look at Quinn. “She wasn’t?”

Quinn’s throat is tight. “She wasn’t.” He doesn’t know why he’s saying any of this. “My dad thought she was, right until he died from liver failure when I was thirteen. His funeral was the first time I ever met her.”

Eliot doesn’t even move. Quinn can tell he’s staring even while Quinn is keeping his gaze staunchly forward on the TV screen. 

“Turns out she’s a spy, you know. Her parents worked for the KGB and immigrated to America, where she was born and raised to be the perfect double agent to plant in the CIA. She never planned on having me, but shit happened, I guess. So there I was, this kid she’s never really met before, and the KGB had just dissolved, and she didn’t know what the fuck to do with me. Or herself.”

“She took you,” Eliot says softly.

“Took me off the whole grid and booked it to Europe.” It had been painful to be yanked out of his life and straight into an entirely different one, but he’d survived it. She’d taught him to survive using any means possible. “Didn’t know what to do with me, so she did what she knew. Trained me. Taught me how to be like her.” He pauses. “Got me connections and jobs.”

“You were just a kid.” Eliot’s voice is unbearably gentle, and Quinn can’t look at Eliot right now. He can’t. 

“I was a kid that killed people.” Quinn wonders what the point is in telling Eliot all of this. He’s not looking for absolution. He’s not interested in sympathy. All he wants is for Eliot to _know_ him. “She was more like my handler than my mom. Barely even saw her after the first couple years of training and she set me loose.” He’d been on his own even back then; he’d known she would never be his safety net. “Then she walked away the day I turned eighteen. Never seen her since.”

Eliot asks, “She still alive?”

“Honestly?” Quinn’s voice wavers. “I don’t know.”

They sit there, the room silent except for the low sounds of gunfire and explosions from the TV. 

“Quinn.” Eliot places the bowl of popcorn and his bottle of beer down on the floor. He half turns towards Quinn to tug the bottle in Quinn’s hands away and place that on the floor, too. “Quinn, look at me.”

“If you’re gonna say that you’re sorry for what I went through or anything like that,” Quinn starts, his voice rough and cracking with a sudden spike of anger, but Eliot interrupts him by grabbing on his wrist and tugging lightly. 

“Look at me,” Eliot says again, and Quinn looks.

The look on Eliot’s face isn’t one of sympathy, or pain, or even sadness. It’s gratitude. “Thank you for telling me.”

“I,” Quinn starts, voice breaking, and he clears his throat. “You don’t need to thank me.”

“I know,” Eliot says, his thumb rubbing warm circles around Quinn’s pulse point. The grateful slant of his mouth makes Quinn want to hand over every single damn secret he has. He didn’t know Eliot’s smile could be this dangerous. “Thank you, anyway.”

After a minute, Quinn looks away, and Eliot lets go of his wrist. Quinn ignores how that makes him feel oddly bereft, and instead pays attention to the TV as Eliot raises the volume once more. 

-

Things pass much the same as before. Nothing really changes.

But there’s something different. Eliot sometimes looks at Quinn like he’s a revelation, and Quinn sometimes bumps shoulders with Eliot and feels the urge to lean in closer. There’s that sense of comfort that they’ve always had, like a warm bath melting the chill away, but it’s like Quinn’s been fully submerged in it. 

Quinn hasn’t had a home in years. He barely remembers what it’s like to have one. But this, being with Eliot—he thinks it cuts pretty damn close.

-

They’re in Seattle when their job goes completely sideways. As in, Quinn gets abducted by a Mexican cartel—who knew the cartels had branched out this far up north?—and dragged off to be interrogated.

Quinn would be embarrassed about how easily he was caught off-guard, but he’s a little preoccupied with being waterboarded and smacked around. It hurts, but on a level that’s bearable so far. At least they haven’t started hacking bits and pieces of him off yet.

Then one of the men presses the flat of a blade against Quinn’s cheek, cruel intent gleaming in his eyes, and Quinn is about to resign himself to a pretty uncomfortable fight when he hears a ruckus outside. Men yelling, guns firing, bodies hitting the ground. With a knife pressed to his face and blood between his teeth, Quinn smiles.

One of them men goes for the door, opening it and shouting outside, demanding to know what’s happening, but then he’s yanked out completely. A loud crunch of bones accompanying a scream rings out and the two other men in the room both grab their guns. One of them creeps towards the open door, raising his firearm, but then a hand grabs his gun and forces it downwards, dragging him forward as Eliot slams his fist into the guy’s face. Then a knee to the ribs, then a stomp to a bent ankle. Quinn’s fairly certain the guy has at least five broken bones. 

The man that had been interrogating Quinn raises his gun, aiming for Eliot, which is an amateur move. Quinn’s chair isn’t bolted down and it’s made of metal, so he simply tips himself forward onto his feet and swings himself sideways, hitting the man with the legs of the chair, hard enough for the shot to go wide and miss Eliot.

Then Eliot is right there, punching the guy down and kicking him hard enough for the ribs to snap. Quinn’s never seen Eliot kick a guy while he’s down before.

“You’re better than this,” Eliot says, sounding annoyed and exasperated and just a touch worried as he cuts the ropes binding Quinn, freeing him from the chair. “You went toe-to-toe with a former Mossad agent last month.”

“I don’t want to hear this from the guy who got a concussion from a second-rate Russian gangster two weeks ago.” Quinn follows Eliot out of the abandoned building that the cartel must’ve set up shop in. There are prone bodies all over the place. Most of them seem alive. They’re more brutally beaten than Eliot’s usual style, but Quinn doesn’t comment on that. “I had it handled.”

Eliot looks critically at Quinn’s bruised face and his hair still damp from the waterboarding. “Right. Sure.”

“I did! No lying, remember?” Quinn bumps a sore shoulder against Eliot’s. He responds to Eliot’s unimpressed look with a sly smile. “But it’d have taken a while. So, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Eliot sighs. “Now, let’s go finish the job.”

-

It’s only when they’re back in the house in Vancouver and Eliot is grunting as he peels his shirt off that Quinn realizes there’s a long gash across Eliot’s lower back. It’s not too deep and isn’t bleeding much, but it’s enough to need stitches. 

“Should’ve been careful,” Quinn admonishes as he threads the needle, but he smiles when Eliot snorts. “Okay, yeah. Pot. Kettle.”

He stitches Eliot up quickly with steady hands, feeling the way Eliot’s muscles shift under his touch and the warmth of Eliot’s skin. Once he’s done with his work, he takes a moment to stare at Eliot’s bare back, something he’s never really had the time or opportunity to really observe, and he realizes just how many scars there are. Starburst marks of gunshot wounds, long lines of marks left by blades. He spots the shiny stretch of a burn mark, too. There’s an entire map of Eliot’s history here.

Eliot’s back, Quinn thinks, is a representation of Eliot himself. Scarred and dented and bruised. Still stronger than anything he’s ever seen before.

Quinn leans his forehead against Eliot’s back, and Eliot stiffens. “Quinn?”

“I hate it when you get hurt,” Quinn says.

“I ain’t a fan of you getting kidnapped, either.” Eliot shifts, and Quinn obligingly lifts his head to see Eliot turning around to look at him. “Don’t fuckin’ do that to me, man.”

Quinn’s throat hurts when he swallows. “Sorry.”

He drops his gaze, unable to meet the sincere emotion in them, and he absentmindedly notes that Eliot’s chest and stomach have a number of scars, too. Some people would think they’re ugly, but Quinn doesn’t think so. He wants to press his mouth to each scar. Wants to prove to Eliot that he’s so fucking glad that Eliot survived this, that he lived long enough to meet Quinn. Maybe this is how Eliot felt, when Quinn told him about how he grew up. Utterly grateful. Achingly proud. Fiercely protective.

Because the flawed things, the things that have survived, chipped and cracked and broken but still persisting—these are the beautiful things. Like a stained glass window made of broken shards. Like jagged Japanese pottery melded together with gold. 

Eliot’s just like that. All the more beautiful because of the things he’s survived. And Quinn would do anything for him, whatever it takes to keep him alive. Keep him safe.

Because he—

“Quinn?” 

Quinn’s eyes snap up to meet blue, curious ones, and then he feels something turn over in his chest, suddenly hyperaware of how close they are, how badly he wants to close the distance between them, how he wants to press his mouth to Eliot’s scars, his skin, his lips. How he wants Eliot’s hands all over him and holding him down and inside him, and Quinn has never wanted something as much as he _wants_ Eliot right now.

“I’m taking the first shower,” Quinn says in a single exhale, then gets off the couch and heads for the bathroom.

Quinn’s jerked off plenty of times since he started living with Eliot, but in the shower under the hot water, it’s the first time he jerks himself off to the thought of a scarred chest, blue eyes, and a low, familiar voice calling his name.

-

Now that he’s aware of it, it’s impossible to ignore just how badly he wants Eliot. And it’s not even surprising, when he thinks about it later. He already needs Eliot, it’s not a huge step from there to want him, too. 

Now, it makes sense that he feels his blood burn under his skin when they spar, every brush of Eliot’s skin against his sparking heat up his spine. He understands why his heart stumbles whenever he hears Eliot humming along to the radio or when Eliot cooks him one of his favorite dishes and serves it with a sly grin. He knows what the bloom of tenderness in his chest every time he sees Eliot smile means, now.

Sometimes he thinks about closing the distance between them. About kissing the smile off of Eliot’s face every time they pull off a job, or about slipping into the converted bed to join him for the night. 

But he doesn’t catch any interest from Eliot’s side, and he’s not going to risk making things awkward between them by making an overture that could be rejected. In fact, he doesn’t think he could handle being rejected in the first place. Eliot is all he has. He can’t risk losing him.

So Quinn buries the want deep down, and lets it suffocate in the dirt. He _needs_ Eliot. He won’t let wanting Eliot ruin that.

-

Weeks pass, and they mutually agree to move again. This time they agree on New York City, which has no shortage of jobs and excitement. It’s a shame to leave the house in Vancouver, which they both have grown fond of, but Eliot’s the one who reminds Quinn that they can come back at some point. 

So they go to New York. 

Neither of them have a safehouse there, so they end up hunting for apartments together, arguing over sightlines and convenient locations and security. It feels ridiculous and stupid and domestic all at once, and when they finally agree on a shiny new high-rise apartment with two bedrooms and a needlessly luxurious kitchen down in Brooklyn, Quinn’s pretty sure they’ve given at least two realtors and five cab drivers the impression that they’re a couple.

He thinks that’s good enough, really. He gets to have Eliot. Eliot could sleep with half the goddamn city and it’d still be Quinn he comes back to. That’s what matters.

He’s the only person Eliot needs. Quinn can live with that.


	3. Chapter 3

They celebrate Quinn’s twenty-first birthday by getting unnecessarily, ridiculously, _terribly_ drunk. Considering that they’ve both spent plenty of time in places where Quinn was legally allowed to drink anyway, there’s nothing special about turning old enough to drink in one particular country. But it seems like a fun idea. Something harmless and silly, a single night where they pretend to be normal people who don’t sleep with weapons under their pillows.

So they buy beer and gin and whiskey, loading up their grocery bags with alcohol and snacks because they know that it’s not safe for hitters of their caliber to get overly drunk in public, and they bring it all back to their apartment in Brooklyn. They turn the TV on, not to watch it but to simply have some low background noise to fill the space while they crack their beers open. 

They drink their way through the beer, then the gin, and then take slow sips of the whiskey, trading opinions on different brands of alcohol while they get steadily tipsier. For all that he’s picky as hell when it comes to food, Eliot is cheap when it comes to beer, and Quinn thinks that’s kind of endearing, in that slightly dangerous way that has been happening increasingly often nowadays. Just finding another part of Eliot that Quinn is dreadfully fond of. Just one more reason he wants to close the distance between them, crawl his way onto Eliot’s lap, into his chest, and make himself at home in the space between his ribs.

God, Quinn is _so_ drunk right now.

“Your alcohol tolerance is _shit_ ,” Eliot says, even though he’s not doing much better. His cheeks and ears are flushed a dark red, and his words slur just the slightest bit. Considering the amount of alcohol they’ve consumed in the past three hours, it’s a miracle that either of them are capable of actually stringing three words together. 

“Fuck you,” Quinn says cheerfully. He’s always been a bit of a happy drunk. “I could still make a shot from half a mile away.”

Eliot snorts. “Yeah, no. I ain’t letting you get your hands on your guns while you’re wasted.”

“Why don’t you put _your_ hands on my guns?” The question tumbles out of Quinn’s mouth before he can stop it, and he tries not to smack his own face, because this is why he shouldn’t get drunk. He has the worst tendency to flirt with people, and not even in a suave way, either. All his NLP training and seduction skills just go out the window and crash-land on the pavement below. 

At least he’s managed to keep his tone light-hearted enough to make it sound like a drunken, stupid joke that he doesn’t mean at all. He gamely keeps his grin easy and relaxed as he leans his elbows on his knees, glass of whiskey dangling from his fingertips. 

And just like Quinn hoped, Eliot doesn’t take him seriously at all and rolls his eyes. “Your lines suck.”

“Excuse you. “Quinn points at him accusingly. “You scored _twice_ thanks to me.” 

Eliot scoffs. “I would’ve scored even without you feeding me a bunch of lines. I’m actually good at it, you know.”

“Right,” Quinn says easily. “But I’m better.”

“Fuck off.” Eliot’s tone is bleeding into amusement, which makes Quinn weirdly delighted. There’s something contagious about Eliot’s good mood, because it never fails to make Quinn feel better. Except when Eliot’s in a good mood after spending a fun night out, leaving his own bedroom cold and unoccupied for the night. Those are the only times when Quinn feels his gut twist, his heart squeezing in his chest as he desperately pastes on a smile to ask how Eliot’s night went. 

Quinn gives Eliot a shit-eating grin. “You’re not denying it.”

“I ain’t gonna have a competition with you over who’s better at flirting,” Eliot says, his words slurring together a little. “Besides, we both know I’d win.”

“Is that big ego of yours overcompensating for something?” Quinn asks sweetly, raising an eyebrow.

Eliot swallows another mouthful of his whiskey before he answers with a confidence that would be overly cocky on anybody else. “Nah, the ego matches the rest of me, y’know.”

“Wow, somebody’s confident,” Quinn says, but his pulse quickens. He’s lived with Eliot for nearly two years, now. They’ve patched each other up more than a dozen times; even stripped down to their underwear for a handful of occasions for those pesky injuries on the thighs. Quinn has a pretty damn good idea of how big Eliot’s cock is, and has fantasized about having it inside him more than once. He’s fairly sure that Eliot is thicker than anybody else he’s ever slept with before, and he’s certain it’d feel amazing to have it fill him up.

Fuck, just thinking about it makes heat flare in the pit of his stomach, and he has to quickly take a gulp of whiskey to blame the warmth of his cheeks on. 

“I’ve been doing this for ten years now. I’m definitely better than you.” Eliot pauses, his smile now replaced by a quizzical expression. “Hang on. Your mom taught you how to flirt with people.”

Quinn shrugs. “NLP training, yeah. And?”

There’s a wince on Eliot’s face, like he knows this isn’t a good question. “She the one who taught you how to have sex, too?”

Quinn chokes on his whiskey. “No! Holy shit, no.” He clears his throat. “I mean, she did give me a basic sex talk. How to be safe and shit.” It was probably the closest she ever came to having a normal parent-child conversation with him, even if the whole exchange had been clinically detached. “I learned how to have sex on my own. Jesus, Eliot.”

“So she ain’t the one who trained you to, uh.” Eliot looks up at the ceiling, looking like he desperately wishes he hadn’t started this conversation in the first place. “Have sex for jobs?”

“I mean, she gave me a rundown on how to be smart about it when she found out I gave a mark a blowjob to get a job done,” Quinn says, and he hates the flutter of worry in his gut, that niggling anxiety of how Eliot might judge him for being the one to have decided to use his body like that. He doubts Eliot would ever hold any real contempt for him over something like this, and he’s never going to be ashamed of who he is and what he’s done, but he still wants Eliot to—shit, he doesn’t even _know_. He just wants Eliot to not think of him any differently. “But no, she never trained me for that.”

Eliot nods, looking a little relieved. “Okay, yeah.” He takes another hasty sip of his whiskey. “Seriously, though, I’m pretty sure I’m better.”

“At sex?” Quinn huffs. “Just because I wasn’t trained at it—”

“And you have less experience,” Eliot adds.

“Still doesn’t mean you’re better,” Quinn grumbles mutinously, but he doesn’t think he can win this argument without getting into an increasingly graphic conversation with Eliot, and he _knows_ , as drunk as he is, that it’s a terrible idea. He doesn’t need the imagery of how good Eliot is in bed to drive him to do something truly embarrassing right now. He already knows the idea alone is going to haunt him at night and in the shower. 

Eliot, seemingly taking Quinn’s response as surrender, grins triumphantly. “Sure, you can believe that if it makes you feel better.”

_I’d feel a lot better if you showed me just how good you are at fucking me senseless_ , Quinn very nearly says, and he has to clear his throat twice before he regains his sanity and enough sobriety to instead say, “Yeah, well, at least my alcohol tolerance is better than yours.”

“No it’s not.”

Quinn gestures at Eliot’s glass of whiskey. “You’re spilling it on the floor, y’know.”

Eliot glances down, curses, then gets up to grab paper towels from the kitchen to wipe the hardwood floor. Quinn laughs at him, and carefully crosses his legs to hide the fact that he’s hard in his jeans.

-

“I don’t get why I have to know how to do this when takeout exists,” Quinn grumbles. He’s in the process of learning how to debone a trout, and he isn’t ashamed to say that he thinks that stabbing a man in the gut while avoiding any vital organs would be easier. “We earn enough that we could be eating goddamn caviar on the regular if we wanted to. Why am I learning how to make fish fillets?”

Eliot, who’s supervising from beside him, huffs and rolls his eyes in a way that Quinn can hear even without seeing it. “Learning how to cook is a survival skill. What if you’re in a remote area where you gotta lay low for a while?” Just as Quinn opens his mouth to retort, Eliot adds, “Some place where you can’t get pizza delivered.”

“Instant food was invented for this exact purpose,” Quinn says mutinously as he pauses midway through in frustration.

“Yeah, but that shit ain’t healthy, and it sure doesn’t taste that good, either.” Eliot nudges Quinn’s elbow, then closes his right hand around Quinn’s, gripping the knife together as he maneuvers Quinn into finishing the job. Quinn would bitch about not needing the extra manhandling, but he likes the warmth of having Eliot’s hand on his skin, so he simply savors the touch. “Just learn the basics and then you can follow easiest recipes. It ain’t that hard.”

Quinn heaves a sigh, partially disappointed when Eliot lets go of his hand. “I just don’t see the point in learning this when I have you.”

Eliot doesn’t answer for a moment, and an alarm starts blaring in Quinn’s head. 

“You gonna be going somewhere?” Quinn asks, making sure to keep his voice casual. He sets the knife and trout down on the cutting board to shift towards Eliot and look him in the eye.

“I ain’t planning to.” Eliot crosses his arms, his gaze flickering from Quinn to the side, and something twists in Quinn’s gut at the tell. “But, y’know. I might not be around some day.”

Quinn swallows down a snarl and says, “What happened to doing whatever it takes?”

“Nothing’s changed on that front,” Eliot says, sounding a little weary. A little regretful. “But I can’t live forever.”

“You better damn try.” There’s the slightest hint of a growl in Quinn’s voice. It’s entirely unintentional, but it conveys his sincerity well enough that it makes Eliot falter. 

“Quinn.” It’s completely unfair, how Eliot sometimes says Quinn’s name so softly, like the word will break on his tongue if he isn’t careful. Like he could crack Quinn open if he says the wrong thing. The worst part of it is, Quinn is pretty sure Eliot really could do that with the right words. “I just wanna make sure you’ll be okay if anything happens to me.”

It takes all of Quinn’s self-control to not throw a punch. He wants to start a fight. He wants to wipe that look off of Eliot’s face and wants Eliot’s solid weight pinned under him, wants to feel how damn alive Eliot is and keep him like that forever. 

“I’ll survive,” Quinn says, because it’s true. He’ll survive without Eliot. Because that’s what Quinn does. He survives, no matter what. 

But he’d hate himself for surviving a life without Eliot. He’d loathe every second of it.

“Surviving and being okay ain’t the same thing,” Eliot says quietly, and Quinn _hates_ how easily Eliot sees through him sometimes. “I want you to be okay.”

_I won’t be okay if I lose you_ , Quinn thinks, but he swallows those words down. “Still don’t think learning how to debone fish is gonna make things okay, though.”

The words are enough for the tension in the air to ease, and soon enough Eliot is huffing a laugh; the awful, regretful look in his eyes fading away as he shakes his head. “You’re such an asshole. Maybe I want you to learn how to cook so I can have a day off from being your personal chef.”

“You could’ve just said that from the beginning,” Quinn grumbles, and gets back to work.

-

The next day, he gets up early and surprises Eliot with breakfast omelets. They’re far from perfect; they don’t have that fluffy texture that Eliot usually creates, and the potatoes inside might be a little singed. But they get him one of those wide, genuine smiles that Eliot usually suppresses, blooming across his face with such open mirth and amused fondness that Quinn’s heart stumbles in his chest. 

“They were a little dry,” Eliot says after they’re done eating.

“Shut up,” Quinn tells him.

“But they were good.” There’s a small, crooked grin on Eliot’s face as he looks Quinn in the eye. “Haven’t had anybody cook for me in a long time.”

Quinn’s throat goes dry.

“So, thank you.” Eliot clasps his hand over Quinn’s, which was resting on the dining table, and squeezes it before he lets go to stand up and collect the plates and cutlery. 

Feeling the warmth of Eliot’s touch linger on his skin, Quinn thinks he might as well learn a few more recipes after all.

-

They go on a job inside the New York Botanical Garden, of all places. It’s a sunny afternoon with clear skies, pleasantly warm with early summer heat, and the job is meant to be an easy one, even if it’s tedious. There’s a small wedding happening in the Rose Garden—some reclusive millionaire rented it out for the day, apparently—and the job requires some sneaking up on one of the invited guests. 

It’s too small of a wedding to crash without drawing serious attention, so they linger outside of the garden, pretending to observe the scenery and peek at the private event taking place like any curious pair of tourists would do. 

“You ever think about that?” Eliot asks after a while. They’ve taken a stroll around the gardens to kill some time, since they’re fairly certain their mark isn’t leaving any time soon, and they’ve paused by the Perennial Garden to admire the view. So Quinn isn’t quite sure what Eliot’s talking about until Eliot clarifies, “Getting married.”

“Gay marriage isn’t legal yet,” Quinn deadpans. “And that whole can of worms aside, that’s never gonna happen while we’re in the game,” he adds with a snort, and Eliot gives him an amused look. 

“Every thought about getting out?” Eliot asks.

Quinn shrugs. “Not really.” He’s in too deep to think about getting out any time soon, and he doesn’t know what he’d do with himself as a civilian, anyway. “What about you? Ever thought about settling down and having an ordinary life?”

“Sure did think about it a couple times,” Eliot admits, which makes the inside of Quinn’s ribcage ache, for some reason. “Decided it was probably never gonna happen.”

“Why not?” They start walking again. Quinn isn’t sure who moved first. Sometimes they do this: moving in sync without prompting each other, reading each other so closely that it’s hard to tell who is making which decision, where the line between them really is. “You’d probably be a better civilian than me.”

Eliot chuckles. “Still, I don’t know how to go back to having a normal life. Can’t, really. You know how it is.”

Quinn knows. Sometimes the weight of a weapon in your hand is the only thing that keeps you sane. Sometimes you blink and see the faces of people you’ve killed staring back at you. Sometimes, the blood doesn’t come out from under your fingernails and you think about how you’ll never be clean of the things you’ve done.

People like them don’t ever get to be normal again. 

The Rose Garden comes back into view, and from far away, Quinn can tell that the bride and groom are kissing as the guests applaud. Right on time, then.

“So I guess you’re not gonna elope and have tiny baby Spencers some day, huh?” Quinn asks as they make their way towards the garden. He’s joking, mostly because the idea of Eliot becoming a family man is hilarious, but even the idea of it makes him uneasy. It’s selfish, but he doesn’t want Eliot to find somebody more important in his life than Quinn. He doesn’t want Eliot to choose a life where Quinn can’t be right beside him.

“Hell no.” Eliot punches Quinn lightly in the shoulder. “I ain’t goin’ anywhere. You’re stuck with me.” 

Quinn hides a smile. “I could live with that.”

-

_Eliot kisses his way down Quinn’s skin, his hands hot and greedy as they map every inch of Quinn, sliding down the insides of his thighs and spreading him open. Quinn’s panting, flushed with pleasure and heat simmering in his blood, too keyed up and too desperate and too empty. He needs more, needs Eliot inside him, needs to be held down and filled up. He hooks his ankles behind Eliot’s back and tilts his hips up, saying Eliot’s name, demanding him to hurry up,_ begging _him to fuck him hard and rough and dirty._

_Laughing, Eliot complies by pressing the head of his cock to Quinn’s rim, teasing him for a moment before he pushes in, and it feels so damn good, but it’s not_ enough _. Quinn’s whining, trying to roll his hips so that he can drag Eliot in deeper, because he needs more than this. He needs to be filled up and fucked out and ruined in every way possible by Eliot Spencer, and he’s so damn close to coming—_

With a low moan muffled into his pillow, Quinn wakes up, hips stuttering as he grinds his cock into the mattress. His brain is still muddled with sleep and arousal, and he’s so damn desperate. It doesn’t even occur to him to jerk himself off; he just rolls his hips again, rubbing his cock against the bed, the friction making his toes curl as he repeats the motion, again and again, until he’s tensing up and coming with a choked whimper. 

“Fuck,” he gasps, still shuddering through the aftershocks when he abruptly realizes what just happened.

He gingerly rolls over onto his back and then winces at the stickiness he can feel in his underwear. With a low curse, he rubs his face with one hand and chases the phantom touches from his dream. The details are already drifting away from him, but he remembers that feeling of warm hands against his skin and a familiar voice murmuring his name. He remembers that dream-like sensation of being filled up. The mere memories stir the remnants of heat in his blood, and soon enough he’s hard again.

This time, Quinn shoves a hand down his underwear to jerk himself off.

After he comes with a muffled curse, he sags against the bed sheets and sighs, basking in the dreamy afterglow, which is promptly followed up by a sense of resignation that he needs to put his underwear and his sleep pants in the hamper. 

Quinn’s had wet dreams before. He’s never had one where the part of the dream that haunts him the most is the other person’s laughter, though. Warm and sweet, like honey on his tongue. He’s never quite wanted a dream to be reality this badly before. Not just the sex, but the smile against his skin and the affectionate whisper of his name. The warmth of Eliot’s body holding his, like he’s something precious.

It’s terrible, Quinn thinks, to have a dream that makes his chest ache this much.

-

Quinn’s having a lazy Wednesday afternoon on the couch when Eliot comes back to the apartment with a vaguely shell-shocked look on his face. It makes Quinn tense up lightning-fast, his brain already running through every possibility as he straightens up in his seat, ready to grab his guns. “Something wrong?”

Eliot shakes his head in lieu of answering aloud, which isn’t reassuring at all. Before he can ask any questions, Quinn has to grit his teeth and wait until Eliot’s dropping onto the empty side of the couch with a heavy sigh, rubbing his face with one hand. 

“What’s going on?” Quinn asks, gentling his voice so that it’s a low murmur. Now that he’s observing Eliot from up close, he can tell that Eliot’s unnerved in a way Quinn’s never seen before. It’s pretty damn alarming, but he has to keep his cool for the both of them right now. 

“My sister,” Eliot starts, and Quinn’s brain immediately jumps to the worst conclusion. He’s trying to come up with an appropriate platitude when Eliot continues, “She had a baby.”

Quinn blinks. “A baby?”

“Yeah, a boy. Two months old, now.” Eliot stares blankly at the glass coffee table. “I have a nephew.”

If this were any other situation, any other person, any other lifetime—Quinn would know what to do. He’d congratulate Eliot, clap a hand to his back and joke about Eliot’s newfound status as an uncle. He’d ask what the boy’s name is and if Eliot plans on visiting back home to see his new nephew.

But this is Eliot, who hasn’t been back home in years ever since he walked out to serve his country. Eliot, who calls his sister once a year on her birthday just to check in and catch up for a handful of minutes. Family isn’t something Eliot really _does_ anymore.

Quinn wonders if Eliot regrets that right now. If he regrets giving up the chance to be an uncle to a kid he’ll most likely never meet.

“I bet it makes you feel real old,” Quinn says lightly, sliding closer so that they’re sitting flush against each other, their shoulders pressed together. It’s the best approximation of comfort that he can give Eliot at the moment.

Eliot snorts a half-hearted laugh, leaning heavily into Quinn’s side. “You could say that.” He sighs, the tension bleeding out of him as he sags against Quinn. “It ain’t a big deal. Just wasn’t expecting it.”

Quinn throws an arm around Eliot’s shoulder to press them together more tightly, tilting his head to the side so that it nudges against Eliot’s. Eliot grumbles, but he leans his head enough for Quinn’s to rest comfortably against it. They’re pretty much snuggling right now, but Quinn doesn’t point it out. “Does it bother you?”

“I’m not sure,” Eliot admits. “It should matter, right? But it doesn’t feel real. It feels like, y’know, something that would’ve mattered in another life.”

“But not in this one,” Quinn murmurs.

“Not in this one,” Eliot confirms. “It’s just—even though she’s my sister and it’s her kid, they don’t feel like _mine_. I know they’re family, but…I haven’t had anything that’s really mine since I joined the army.”

Quinn tightens his arm around Eliot. “You have me.”

There’s a pause, a moment when Eliot doesn’t answer, and Quinn’s heart nearly stops when Eliot moves to pull away and look at Quinn’s face. But then Eliot’s eyes are going soft as he nods, his voice a near-silent whisper as he says, “Yeah, just you. You’re the only thing that counts.”

Quinn’s chest goes tight at those words, like there’s suddenly too much contained inside of him. Like he could crack open if he isn’t careful. He swallows down the awful urge to say something irrevocable and instead quirks a small smile at Eliot. “I’ve never had anything that’s mine, you know.”

“Guess I’m the first, then,” Eliot says as he straightens back up in his seat. Quinn should be disappointed about Eliot moving away from his touch, but it’s hard to feel bereft when Eliot’s grinning at him, promising that he’s Quinn’s.

_You’ll be the last, too_ , Quinn thinks. _You’ll be the first and last and only thing that ever really matters to me_.

It’s probably a dangerous thought. Quinn doesn’t care. He thrives on danger, anyway.

-

They go to Tokyo for a job and Quinn gets to witness Eliot using an actual katana to fight off a mercenary. The whole thing is ridiculous and absurd and insanely hot. 

“Too bad we can’t take that thing back with us,” Quinn says after he wrestles his imagination and dick under control. They’ve returned the katana to its rightful owner and are on their way to report to bring back the stolen family heirlooms to their client. The whole city is lit up bright and wild even under the night sky, much like Manhattan usually is, and Quinn loves it. He’s always been a sucker for bustling cities where you can disappear into a crowd even late into the night. “You’re good at sword fighting.”

Eliot scoffs, even as a corner of his mouth curls upwards at the praise. “It’s unrealistic to carry a sword around for jobs in public.”

“Fair enough,” Quinn says. He makes a mental note to contrive another occasion to drag Eliot into a job that will potentially involve fighting with swords at some point in the future. “Oh, hey, wanna grab crepes after we drop these off?”

“And takoyaki,” Eliot adds with a nod. 

And that’s how they spend an extra three days in Japan after the job is done: gorging themselves on local foods and walking through different parts of the city. A number of women giggle and eye them both invitingly during that time, but Eliot only smiles back and offers nothing more.

Quinn tries not to feel too smug about that.

He fails, just a little.

-

They’re in the middle of a job at the edge of Queens when Eliot gets shot through his left side. It’s not bad for a gunshot wound; it’s a clean through-and-through, nowhere near any vital organs, and just more of a painful, bloody nuisance rather than a real threat to Eliot’s life.

That doesn’t stop Quinn from using an excessive amount of bullets to creatively maim the handful of men they’d been ‘retrieving’ a package from. The only reason Quinn doesn’t kill any of them outright is because Eliot is scowling at him, telling him to leave the poor men alone so they can hurry up and get out of the place.

So they grab the package and make their way back to Brooklyn in a cab, careful not to leave blood everywhere as they pay the cabbie extra for flooring it. 

Back in the apartment, with the package set aside to be delivered to their client tomorrow, Quinn threads a sterilized needle and gets to work on stitching Eliot’s bullet wound. It’s quiet while he works; Quinn doesn’t talk when he’s patching Eliot back up, and Eliot’s busy breathing through the pain in a calm rhythm. Eliot’s skin is a little damp, slick from blood and sweat, and it’s warm under Quinn’s hands. The sound of Eliot’s breathing and the warmth of his skin is enough to soothe the snarling anger inside Quinn’s ribcage as he works, stitching Eliot up with clinical efficiency until Eliot isn’t bleeding anymore.

He wipes the excess blood from his hands and Eliot’s skin with a damp cloth, and it vaguely occurs to him that Eliot is shirtless, and that they’re close enough right now that he could probably feel the gust of Quinn’s breath on every exhale. That leads to Quinn lifting his head to realize that yes, there’s only a scant couple inches between their faces, and Eliot’s _looking_ at him, blue eyes flickering down to Quinn’s mouth and then up to meet his gaze.

And then they’re moving in sync again, leaning in at the exact same moment as Eliot tilts his head to meet Quinn’s mouth in a hungry kiss. 

Quinn melts into it without a second thought, sighing in contentment when Eliot cups his cheek, closing his eyes and placing a hand on Eliot’s thigh for balance as he leans in closer. They kiss like that, urgent and desperate, until Eliot breaks away with a gasp. “Shit, I can’t—”

Eliot pulls away from Quinn’s reach entirely, stumbling to his feet as he backs off, looking panicked and somewhat chagrined. Quinn blinks at him, feeling the inside of his stomach twist at the whiplash of Eliot’s reaction. “There a problem?”

“We’re not doing this,” Eliot says, which would feel like a slap to the face, except Eliot’s voice trembles the tiniest bit, the conviction in his tone shaky at best. “It never happened.”

Quinn narrows his eyes and deliberately tilts his head sideways, just enough to show the line of his neck, and carefully licks his lips. The way Eliot’s gaze immediately drops to his mouth is a dead giveaway. “Why not?”

“I shouldn’t have done that.” There’s panic and guilt in Eliot’s expression, but there’s also a glint of hunger in his eyes that Quinn can see clear as day.

“Forget if you should or shouldn’t,” Quinn says, making the tactical decision to stay exactly where he is. “Do you _want_ to?”

Eliot doesn’t answer.

Because, Quinn thinks triumphantly, Eliot won’t lie. He might not be able to admit what he wants aloud, but Eliot will never lie to Quinn, even when he desperately wants to.

“What’s stopping you?” Quinn thinks, briefly, about playing dirty. He considers biting his lower lip, ducking his head down to look up at Eliot through his lashes, leaning forward to accentuate the arch of his back. He considers it, but he doesn’t. Eliot’s not stupid enough to fall for cheap tricks, and Quinn wouldn’t want him to. All he wants is Eliot to choose him, wholeheartedly and of his own volition. “It sure as hell ain’t me.”

Eliot’s eyes darken with desire at Quinn’s words, but he doesn’t come any closer. “Quinn, I’m not having sex with you.”

Quinn frowns, but he doesn’t argue. Eliot’s a stubborn son of a bitch, and trying to fight him on this right now would only make Eliot dig in his heels even deeper. Wanting to drag Eliot to bed based on an impulse isn’t worth making things awkward between them the next day. 

Having Eliot refuse to sleep with him is something Quinn can deal with, even if it hurts like a slap to the face. Having sex with Eliot only to see him regret it afterwards—Quinn doesn’t think he could handle that. 

So he nods, feigning a casual attitude as he sits back and shrugs. Deliberately relaxing himself even though he wants this so badly. “Sure.” Unable to help himself, he smirks and adds, “But hey, if you ever change your mind, let me know.”

Eliot wavers, for one heart-stopping second. Just long enough for Quinn’s pulse to spike with hope. But then he’s shaking his head, expression closing off as he says, “Good night.”

Then Eliot turns and heads into his own bedroom, closing the door behind him with a final click, and Quinn swallows a scream.

-

Eliot starts avoiding Quinn. It’s subtle, but Quinn can feel the distance stretching between them in the way Eliot sometimes looks away quickly after meeting Quinn’s gaze, or the way Eliot’s smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes anymore. And the most damning of all: Eliot stops touching Quinn. No more casual pats to the shoulder or squeezes to the elbow or joking nudges to the side. Quinn hadn’t even realized just how _often_ they used to trade touches between them until Eliot cut him off cold turkey, and now he’s feeling the withdrawal like a kick to the gut.

He’d have a word with Eliot about it, really, except it’s difficult to have it out over these little things. It’s impossible to say something like _you don’t touch me anymore_ without sounding like a lunatic or a clingy boyfriend, and Quinn is neither of those things. He doesn’t have the right to demand that Eliot put his hands all over him, that Eliot press his smile to Quinn’s mouth and that he never look away from Quinn ever again. 

But dammit, he’s pretty certain Eliot _wants_ to. He catches Eliot looking at him, sometimes, with a nameless kind of desire burning in his blue eyes, and Quinn thinks it would be so easy to just walk up to Eliot and drop to his knees. It’d be so damn easy to shove Eliot up against a wall and kiss him and say _yes, you can have me, I’ve been yours for so long now that I don’t remember what it’s like to not belong to you._ There’s a certainty in the pit of Quinn’s stomach that if he pushes hard enough, Eliot will let Quinn into his bed.

The thing that Quinn doesn’t know is, will the bed be all he gets? He knows Eliot wants him, physically. That much he’s sure of. But whether Eliot wants more than sex, whether he feels the same way Quinn does—Quinn has no fucking clue.

And that’s why he doesn’t make a move. It’s why he lets Eliot carefully sit an extra few inches away from him; why he doesn’t say a word when Eliot looks away every time Quinn catches him looking. Quinn might thrive on danger, but he can’t risk what he has with Eliot over an attempt to have sex with him.

It’s hard to turn a blind eye to it all, though. Something deep in his chest stings every time he pretends not to notice the way Eliot sometimes takes a cautious step away when they stand too close or the way Eliot smiles half-heartedly, like he’s wary of letting his guard down in front of Quinn. It’s hard to act like none of this bothers him. Like it doesn’t hurt.

Sometimes, Quinn wishes Eliot hadn’t kissed him in the first place.

-

They relocate to Miami temporarily for a long-term job. They rent a nice, quaint house with a coat of eggshell-blue paint and white trimming. The place is clean and just on the charming side of old-fashioned, with slightly faded wallpaper and even a porcelain bathtub. It’s an hour away from the beach but it’s only two minutes from their asset’s house. 

The job is simple: keep an eye on the asset and protect him from any threats without alerting the asset himself. Quinn’s only ever took on jobs to protect clients for short periods of time before; he’s never had to play guardian angel for somebody who isn’t even aware of it for a matter of weeks. Eliot, on the other hand, seems fairly familiar with the whole routine. He’s the one who plans out their shifts and routines so that at least one of them has an eye on the asset at all times. Quinn lets Eliot take charge on that front, and in the meantime he goes and sets up surveillance on the asset. He sets up cameras, plants bugs, and even taps into the asset’s landline. 

They set up a schedule and stick to it. The asset lives a remarkably predictable life that runs like clockwork, which is both convenient for his secret bodyguards and for anybody who plans on gunning for him. Quinn hopes that the latter doesn’t exist.

So they spend their days keeping an eye on the asset, taking turns following him to work, updating each other on any happenings that occurred while the other wasn’t present. It all feels remarkably peaceful and domestic, but also weirdly detached. Quinn and Eliot hardly speak to each other except for inane small talk or discussing the job. All the time they spend together is half-spent focusing on the asset’s whereabouts. The perch they use for watching over the asset’s home overnight is in the living room, so Quinn doesn’t even get to have the comfort of listening to Eliot sleep while he keeps watch.

It’s stupid, but Quinn misses Eliot. They live in the same house, eat half their meals together, and they talk to each other every day, but there’s an invisible chasm between them. All Quinn wants is to cross it and pull Eliot into his arms and never let go.

It’s stupid, Quinn thinks bitterly, sitting in the dark as he sips his coffee and watched the asset’s front porch, where nothing ever happens. So fucking stupid.

-

The first incident happens during the second week. Eliot catches two hired guns trying to break into the asset’s home while Quinn’s tailing their guy downtown, and he sends them off with multiple broken bones. Two more incidents happen the following week, one involving a woman with a machine gun and the other involving a couple of amateurs with baseball bats. Taking care of them isn’t all that hard, to be honest—it’s even a little fun, Quinn admits in the privacy of his mind after he knocks a professional assassin out with a frying pan—but it’s a pain to try keep this all under the asset’s radar. 

“Why can’t we just _tell_ him that his life’s in danger?” Quinn crosses his arms and scowls, looking out the window at where their asset is presumably resting after a long day at work. “It’d make things a hell of a lot easier.”

Eliot finishes garnishing the pad thai with a snort, setting the plates onto the dining table with distinctive clinking noises that has Quinn turning around to make a beeline for their dinner. “The NSA sometimes likes to keep an asset unaware of the fact that they’re a person of interest. We’re getting paid pretty nicely just to sit around, y’know.”

“Since when did you like just sitting around?” Quinn asks with a frown. 

Eliot shrugs. “It’s nice, sometimes. Peaceful.”

“Peaceful,” Quinn parrots, disbelieving. Then he catches movement out of the corner of his eye. There’s a van that’s rolling its way up the road slow and casual, which wouldn’t be much cause for alarm, except it’s the same van Quinn clocked twice earlier today. The van slows to a stop fifty feet away from the asset’s house, and Quinn’s already leaping out of his seat, heading for the front door. “Yeah, sure, it’s peaceful alright!”

“Shut up and make it quick,” Eliot hisses as he follows right behind him. “Food’s gonna get cold.”

Quinn grabs the gun that was clipped to the back of his belt, managing to throw one last incredulous look at Eliot before he charges into a fight with what looks like three ex-Marines. 

Fifteen minutes later, when their unwelcome guests have been sent to a hospital and the two of them are back to sitting at the dining table, Eliot’s smiling. It’s the first time in weeks that Quinn’s seen that unabashed, gleeful look on Eliot’s face, and Quinn’s whole chest squeezes hard around his heart at the sight. 

“See?” Eliot smirks. “Peaceful.”

“Your standard of peaceful is so terrifyingly low,” Quinn deadpans, and Eliot cracks up.

It’s nice, seeing Eliot laugh, hearing the rasp of his voice as he chuckles, and soon enough Quinn is laughing along with him, because this feels like the thaw before spring, the ice melting away. Awkwardness dissolving as things return to normal between them.

Then Quinn looks Eliot in the eye, and just for a moment, Eliot looks back with a warmth in his eyes that has Quinn’s heart stuttering in his chest. It’s like light filtering in through a fractured window; Quinn catches a glimpse of something that he almost recognizes in the crack of Eliot’s defenses, an emotion that Eliot would normally never let anybody else see.

_Huh_ , Quinn thinks. 

-

The job comes to a rather abrupt end sometime during the fifth week, when the NSA rocks up to the asset’s house to take him into official protective custody and whisk him off to whatever shady operation they’ve got going. Quinn doesn’t know the details and doesn’t care. He’d normally at least make mental notes about whatever details he can catch, in case it turns out to be valuable intel, but he’s spent the past couple weeks more focused on Eliot than on the job.

Eliot is hard to read. Even though he’s a fundamentally honest person and not exactly a great actor, he’s good at repressing himself. Eliot excels at that kind of thing. Holding himself still, making himself smaller, burying parts of himself alive and only leaving the facade everybody else is meant to see.

But Quinn’s not everybody else. He’s been watching the way Eliot looks at him every time he opens the door after Quinn knocks on it to change shifts at night. He’s been searching for the cracks and flaws in Eliot’s armor and he’s seen flickers of desire that aren’t entirely physical. He’s taken over the kitchen a handful of times to cook instead, and he’s observed the way the curl of Eliot’s mouth goes soft right as he’s about to take a bite of Quinn’s cooking. He’s been paying attention to the way Eliot calls his name, and sometimes he could swear he hears affection there that means more than any kiss could.

Quinn has a hell of a theory, but he needs conclusive proof.

Now that the job is done and over, with still three weeks left on their lease, they’ve decided to stay a little longer in Miami and enjoy the sunshine and beach before they head back to New York. Quinn thinks this place is the perfect place to test his theory.

And if it turns out that he’s wrong, well. This city’ll offer him plenty of ways to get over it.

-

They spend another week together, not quite perfectly meeting in the middle. They go to the beach, go hunting for the best places to eat, and spend lazy evenings watching movies. Eliot still doesn’t quite touch Quinn casually, but their elbows brush every so often and their knees bump under the dining table. Sometimes, Eliot watches Quinn out of the corner of his eye and Quinn pretends not to notice. Sometimes, Quinn watches Eliot blatantly, without hiding it, and doesn’t look away when Eliot catches him at it. Every time, Eliot swallows hard and pauses, like he’s caught between closing the distance between them and turning around to leave.

Every time, Eliot never says a word and looks away first.

After a week, Quinn’s tired of waiting and watching. It’s time to find out what Eliot really wants. And if that turns out to not include Quinn, then at least he can uproot the hope out of his chest and burn it to ashes.

-

He takes Eliot to a club. It’s a big one. Well-known and popular and attracting a wide crowd that involves all kinds of people. Eliot’s not a fan of clubs—neither is Quinn, to be honest—but Quinn coaxes him into it, citing that they could use a night out somewhere with cheap booze and good music. The Saturday night DJ in this place is supposedly quite talented, so Quinn has an easy excuse to bring Eliot here.

“The music’s real nice,” Quinn says loudly to be heard over the din, sipping at his G&T while he leans against the club’s bar.

“Not bad,” Eliot agrees, and takes a swig of his beer. Quinn watches the movement. The way Eliot’s mouth wraps around the bottle and the line of his throat, bared as he tilts his head up. The sight sends a flare of heat through the pit of Quinn’s stomach.

“Hey.” He finishes his drink and leaves the glass on the bar. Eliot’s nearly done with his beer, too, so this is the perfect timing. “Wanna dance?”

Eliot frowns. “What, now?”

“Yeah, now.” Quinn gives Eliot his most winning smile. “Eliot, come dance with me.”

A sharp gleam enters Eliot’s eyes, and that’s how Quinn knows that Eliot’s figured out that he’s asking for more than a dance. Quinn’s asking for a night of fun. Or even more than that. Whatever Eliot is willing to give him, Quinn is willing to take it.

“Quinn,” Eliot says very slowly. “I ain’t dancing with you.”

“Not even a waltz?” Quinn asks, and he doesn’t know why he asked that. He doesn’t know why he thought this might work. Maybe he’d hoped that the wild energy of the crowd would change something. That the heavy beat of the music would bring something more reckless and honest out of Eliot. 

Eliot shakes his head. “Leave it.”

“Fine.” Quinn’s voice comes out sharper than he meant, but he knows when to fold a losing hand. This was partly why he chose to take a chance here; it can be written off as a moment of rash decisions fueled by the atmosphere and alcohol. Something they can forget about once they go back to the house. More importantly, he chose this place because he can easily find a distraction if things go awry. “I’m gonna go find someone else to dance with, then.”

Leaving Eliot behind and making the conscious choice not to look back to see what’s happening, Quinn focuses on slowly walking his way through the establishment and scanning the crowd. Soon enough, he zeroes in on a man eyeing him up and down like he’s starving and Quinn’s the best deal on the market. When their eyes meet, the man smiles, slow and inviting, and that’s enough for Quinn to approach him, grimly determined to wipe Eliot out of his mind for the rest of the night.

“Hey there,” Quinn says, and the man grins at him in a way that suggests a whole night of fun right there for the taking, if Quinn is up for it. And Quinn is up for it. The man is tall and broad-shouldered, with dark hair and an easy smile that Quinn wouldn’t mind dragging into bed. “You got any plans for the night?”

They chat for a few minutes, mostly flirting and casually testing the waters as they slowly gravitate closer. Quinn doesn’t know if this is really the best idea or not, but in the end, it doesn’t fucking matter, he thinks, his heart pounding to the music and his blood warm under his skin. He’s tired of being stuck in suspended motion. He’s sick of all the tension coiled tight in his gut. And if an attractive stranger is what it takes for him to finally get rid of the relentless itch under his skin, he’ll take it.

So Quinn leans in close to the other guy, smiling and tilting his head just enough to show the bare side of his neck, an invitation to be marked up. And then a warm hand is pressing to the small of his back, pulling him in, and Quinn shivers a little at the touch; the warmth bleeds through his thin shirt, and then they’re kissing. It’s warm and wet and something that Quinn’s missed for a while now. He brings up both hands to slide them up the other guy’s shoulders, and he’s about to lick his way into the warm mouth pressed against his when he hears people yelling, and he pulls away to look at whatever’s causing the scene.

It’s Eliot, pinning a guy to the ground as the club’s bouncers hurry over, and Quinn groans. Of fucking course. Leave it to Eliot Spencer to somehow fuck up Quinn’s night somehow in a completely unexpected way. 

“Sorry, that’s my friend. I should go.” Quinn makes his excuses and heads over to Eliot and a couple other girls who’re explaining to the bouncers that the man had been groping them without their consent, which Eliot had put a rather violent stop to. The man gets kicked out, and Eliot graciously offers to leave the club without causing more of a fuss, much to the disappointment of the women there. 

Eventually, Quinn and Eliot grab a cab and head back to the house, not speaking to each other at all until they’re closing the front door behind them. 

Then Quinn finally sighs. “You know you could’ve been more subtle about sending that asshole packing.”

“Hey, I was doing the right thing,” Eliot snaps, unexpectedly sharp and angry in a way that grates against Quinn’s nerves.

“Fuck you, I didn’t mean that you did anything wrong.” Quinn bares his teeth. “I meant that I _know_ you could’ve sent that creepy piece of shit running for the hills without drawing any attention, because I’ve seen you do it before. You made a commotion on purpose!”

Eliot growls. “What does it matter? You didn’t need to come get kicked out with me. You could’ve ignored the whole thing and just went home with that other guy!”

“Yeah, well, maybe I should’ve done that,” Quinn spits, and it’s impossible to miss the way Eliot grits his teeth and clenches his jaw. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Eliot, do you have a problem with me going and fucking another guy?” 

“I don’t,” Eliot begins, but then he stops, as if he realizes he can’t finish the sentence without turning it into either a lie or a truth he can’t bear to say aloud. It doesn’t matter. His abrupt silence is enough.

Quinn’s hands curl into fists by his sides as he glares at Eliot. He’s tired and pissed and just so damn _done_ with everything. “Eliot, if you wanna have sex with me, just fucking say so.”

“Okay, maybe I do! But we’re not doing this,” Eliot says. Quinn shoots him an incredulous look, at which Eliot shakes his head. “I’m not having sex with you, okay?”

“Why not?” Quinn takes a step forward and Eliot takes a step back, maintaining the distance between them. Something about that makes the inside of Quinn’s chest hurt. “Why the fuck not?”

Eliot hesitates. “Quinn, you’re twenty-one.”

That makes Quinn raise both his eyebrows, because what the _fuck_. “Eliot Spencer, are you saying I’m too young for you?”

“I’m saying that we shouldn’t do this.” Eliot looks wrecked, torn between desire and guilt. “ _I_ shouldn’t.”

“Fuck you,” Quinn snarls. “I’m not a kid. I’m an adult. I can make my own choices. Don’t fucking treat me like I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Quinn—”

“No, shut up.” Miraculously, Eliot does shut up. “You’re only five years older than me. You think that’s a big deal? I’ve been killing people since I was a teenager. I’ve done things that no good man should do. And you think somehow having _sex_ with you is gonna be the thing that’s bad for me?”

“It wouldn’t be just sex,” Eliot says, sounding pained.

Quinn pauses, suddenly cautious. Maybe a little hopeful. “Then what else is there?”

“I…fuck.” Eliot exhales shakily. “I can’t be casual with you, alright? If we had sex, I’d want more than just that. And I can’t do that to you, okay? I can’t drag you into this.”

Quinn gets it. He does. Eliot thinks Quinn might not be able to say no to him. Eliot thinks that Quinn deserves better. But what Eliot doesn’t realize is that Quinn doesn’t _want_ to say no. That Quinn doesn’t want anything better. Quinn’s answer to Eliot is always going to be yes, enthusiastically and wholeheartedly, and maybe that’s dangerous. Maybe that’s not a good thing. Quinn doesn’t give a fuck, as long as it means he gets to keep Eliot Spencer.

“You’re an idiot.” He advances on Eliot, who takes another step back before Quinn catches up to him, both hands grabbing the front of Eliot’s shirt as he says, “Eliot, I’ve _killed_ for you. There’s nothing casual about that, you asshole.”

Eliot stares at him. “I—what?”

“I’m saying that you already have all of me,” Quinn says, his voice trembling only the slightest bit. “Only thing that counts, remember?”

In the ensuing silence, Quinn could swear that the sound of both their heartbeats fill the room.

“Okay, so maybe I was an idiot,” Eliot finally says in a choked voice, and then Quinn stops him from saying anything else by hauling him in and kissing him.

They kiss each other hungrily, one of Eliot’s hands coming up to thread through Quinn’s curls while the other hand sneaks under the hem of Quinn’s shirt, tracing the skin of his lower back right above the waistband of his jeans. In return, Quinn releases Eliot’s shirt in favor of sliding both hands up Eliot’s chest around his shoulders until he’s got both arms curled around Eliot’s neck, pulling him in tight as he sighs into the kiss.

Taking advantage of Quinn’s sigh, Eliot licks into Quinn’s mouth and turns the kiss filthy and indulgent, until Quinn’s toes are curling in his shoes. Then they’re moving in sync again, despite never having done this together before, taking turns pushing and pulling each other, stumbling their way into Eliot’s bedroom. From there, it’s quick work to get rid of their clothes, stealing kisses as they strip down to bare skin, until they’re both naked and looking at each other under the soft moonlight. Heat flushes through Quinn’s whole body when he sees the way Eliot’s gaze turns ravenous, like he wants to eat Quinn alive, and it’s impossible to miss the way Eliot’s cock twitches when Quinn instinctively licks his lips.

“Want me to blow you?” Quinn asks, deliberately tilting his head and biting his lower lip. 

Eliot raises an amused eyebrow, like he sees exactly what Quinn’s trying to do and thinks it’s cute. “Is that what you want?” 

“I’m good with anything.” Quinn takes a step forward so that there’s barely any space between them, tipping Eliot’s face up with a finger under his chin so that their lips brush against each other as he whispers, “Whatever you want to do to me, I’m up for it.”

Both of Eliot’s hands settle on Quinn’s hips, warm and firm, keeping him there as Eliot pulls away, just a bit. Even in the dim lighting, Quinn can tell the hunger in Eliot’s eyes has been tempered with something unexpectedly tender. “You said you don’t really trust anybody enough to enjoy sex.”

Quinn blinks. He’d nearly forgotten that he’d said that. He’s surprised Eliot remembers it at all. “I mean, yeah.” He feels a frisson of worry, unsure of what Eliot’s trying to get at. “That’s not a problem, though. I trust you.”

“I know you do,” Eliot says in a quiet voice, a soft smile curling at his mouth. Then his gaze turns sharper. “So I wanna have you enjoy this.” His hands squeeze Quinn’s hips hard enough for Quinn’s breath to catch in his throat, the idea of Eliot’s hands leaving bruise marks already sending a thrill up his spine. Then, Eliot leans back in and nips at Quinn’s lower lip. “Tell me what you want, Quinn.”

“You.” Quinn takes one of Eliot’s hands and pulls it behind him, guiding Eliot’s fingers to delve into the cleft of his ass, right where he’s aching to be filled up. “Just you.”

“Fuck,” Eliot mutters, and then he’s capturing Quinn’s mouth in another wet, open-mouthed kiss, sucking on Quinn’s tongue as he walks Quinn backwards towards the bed. 

Quinn lets himself be toppled backwards onto the mattress, laughing breathlessly as he watches Eliot take a moment to dig out lube and condoms from the bedside drawer. He doesn’t ever recall laughing like this, naked and on his back and full of delight. It’s nice. 

Then a shivery anticipation goes through Quinn when Eliot climbs onto the bed on all fours to hover over him with a smile. “Enjoying yourself?”

“I’ll enjoy it a lot more when you’re fucking me,” Quinn says, grinning. He runs his hands up Eliot’s bare chest just like how he’s been fantasizing for many months now. At some point very soon, Quinn is going to get his mouth on all that scarred skin, but first, he wants to be fucked hard enough that he can feel it tomorrow.

“I can work with that.” Eliot dips down to kiss Quinn again, and Quinn is all too eager to kiss him back.

Eliot fingers Quinn open slow and steady, despite the fact that Quinn’s been burning for this for so long now. It’s not just since they kissed in the living room, or since Eliot first kissed him that very first time, or even since Quinn realized he wanted to kiss Eliot. Quinn’s wanted this, wanted Eliot, for so long that he doesn’t even know when it really started. Maybe it was when they went shopping for a couch together in Vancouver. Or when Quinn woke up in Chicago to realize that Eliot had patched up his bullet wound after killing a man for him. Or maybe it was since that first time Eliot ever thanked him, awkward but sincere, after Quinn stitched him up in London. Quinn has no clue when it started, but he knows that he’s been ready for this a long time, so he says, “Eliot, if you don’t fuck me right now, I’m never giving you a blowjob.”

“You’re such a brat,” Eliot says, sounding fond as he presses a kiss to Quinn’s knee—which makes Quinn’s insides go weirdly wobbly, what the fuck—and then he pulls his fingers out. 

When Eliot slides his cock inside him, Quinn chokes on a whine at the throb of pain of how thick Eliot is. Eliot pauses at that, but Quinn shakes his head and says in a shaky voice, “I like it this way.”

“Jesus,” Eliot mutters, but he resumes pushing inwards, until he’s all the way inside of Quinn. 

“Fuck,” Quinn breathes. He has to take a moment to acclimate before he experimentally clenches around Eliot’s cock. The reaction is immediate: Eliot’s hands spasm from where they’re gripping Quinn’s hips, and Eliot swears viciously under his breath as his whole body twitches. There’s a visceral kind of satisfaction that flutters through Quinn at the knowledge that right now, Eliot is _his_ in every single way that matters. “Okay, you can move now.”

“You’re gonna be the death of me,” Eliot grumbles, and Quinn doesn’t know if he likes the sound of that or not. There’s a strange, conflicted sense of pleasure in the idea that he could be the one who matters enough to bring Eliot down, intermingling with the terror at the idea of being Eliot’s downfall. 

Then Eliot’s pulls back and thrusts _hard_ , and every single thought in Quinn’s head blanks out.

Eliot fucks him in rough, steady thrusts that punch the breath out of Quinn’s lungs. It feels good, almost too good, and then there’s that familiar sense of vulnerability. Of giving over too much of himself, and his first instinct is to fight the pleasure.

But then Eliot says his name, the utterance of a single syllable weighed down with so much emotion that Quinn can’t help but clutch at Eliot’s shoulders and pull him closer, because this is Eliot. This is _his_ Eliot, who Quinn trusts with his life and his secrets and his entire goddamn heart, so he surrenders to the pleasure entirely.

When Quinn comes, back arching and toes curling, Eliot grips Quinn’s wrists with a bruising, possessive grip and says, “Yeah, that’s it, you’re all mine.”

When Eliot comes a couple minutes later with a low groan, Quinn shivers and thinks, _you’ll be the death of me, too_.

But as Eliot smiles at him, leaning in for a kiss, Quinn thinks he’d be okay with that.

-

When they wake up the next morning, Quinn’s whole body aches from all the rounds of sex they had. He likes it.

He peeks at Eliot, who’s still got an arm thrown across Quinn’s chest as he blinks back at him. Quinn can’t read any kind of regret or awkwardness there, but he still needs to check. “No second thoughts?”

“Not unless you have any,” Eliot replies, and Quinn smiles.

“What’s your opinion on morning sex?” Quinn asks, and Eliot smiles back.

-

Now that they’ve started having sex, they can’t stop. It’s impossible to keep their hands off of each other. Settling down to watch a movie on the TV turns into Eliot riding Quinn on the couch. Helping Eliot cook dinner turns into Quinn sucking Eliot off right there in the kitchen while the bacon starts to burn. Once, they take a lazy bath in the porcelain tub and rut against each other there as water sloshes onto the tiled floor. Falling asleep after several rounds of sex is followed by mornings where they wake up and go at least one round before they get out of bed.

Even when they leave Miami and return to their apartment in Brooklyn, they’re constantly having sex. It’s a little ridiculous and incredibly fun, especially when Eliot ends up fucking Quinn on the dining table so hard that one of the table’s legs breaks. 

They get a sturdier table after that.

Quinn’s aware that this is a type of honeymoon period, and that it won’t last forever. Eliot agrees, so they both decide to enjoy it while it lasts. They’ll have to get tired of the constant sex eventually.

But for now, though, they’re happy with what they have.

-

They decide to move across the Atlantic again. Quinn misses Europe, and Eliot thinks that they might want to get off the NSA’s radar for a while. So they discuss the merits of different cities in a variety of countries before they settle on Zürich. It’s situated in a good location for taking jobs all across the continent, the scenery is excellent, and there aren’t any bounties on either of their heads in Switzerland.

So they clean up the apartment in Brooklyn, pack what they need, and head to Zürich.

Quinn loves it. He loves speaking in a mix of German and French and Italian with the locals. He loves the food, especially the abundant amounts of cheese. And he loves the picturesque cottage that he and Eliot purchase at the outskirts of the city. It’s got a great view and mahogany furniture blending in with the woodsy color scheme of the interior design. His favorite part in the place, obviously, is the master bedroom that he shares with Eliot.

“We should go skiing,” Quinn murmurs, feeling the chill of winter start to settle into the air as he stands on the porch, taking in the scenery sprawled before him.

Eliot shoves a mug of hot chocolate into his hands. “One of the locals told me there’s an exclusive ski resort fifteen miles away. We could go there.”

“Been practicing your German?” Quinn asks, sipping the drink carefully so he doesn’t burn his tongue. It’s a mystery how Eliot’s hot chocolate tastes so damn good.

“Enough to understand that the owner of the bakery we go to thinks we’re basically married.” Eliot pauses. “Guess she’s not that far off the mark.”

Quinn smiles and bumps his shoulder against Eliot’s. “No, she isn’t.”

Eliot’s quiet for a moment, and then he says, “I prefer snowboarding, by the way.”

“Of course you do,” Quinn says with a snort. “I’m probably faster than you.”

“Wanna bet?” Eliot raises an eyebrow, his mouth slanting into a smirk that Quinn wants to kiss off his face. So he does.

“Loser has to listen to the winner’s orders in bed for a week,” Quinn whispers against Eliot’s mouth.

Eliot chuckles, brushing his mouth against Quinn’s once more. “Bring it, sweetheart.”

Right now, Quinn thinks, life is pretty perfect.


	4. Chapter 4

The day Quinn turns twenty-two years old, he wakes up to Eliot sucking him off from under the covers.

“Scheiße!” He swears loudly when Eliot does a trick with his tongue that Quinn taught him just last week. Eliot chuckles around Quinn’s cock at that, clearly amused. Ever since they moved to Zürich, Quinn’s been more prone to slipping into different languages outside of English, which Eliot seems endlessly entertained by. Quinn hasn’t missed the way Eliot reacts to it in bed, though; Eliot has a kink for Quinn’s multilingual dirty talk, especially when it’s in French. “Tu vas me baiser, mon cheri?”

“No, I’m not gonna fuck you,” Eliot says as he pulls off of Quinn’s dick, which is disappointing right up til the moment where Eliot crawls up to straddle Quinn’s hips and position himself with a grin. “Other way around, sweetheart.”

Then he’s sinking down onto Quinn’s cock with a low groan in one slow, slick slide, eyes fluttering shut in as he tilts his head back, baring his throat. Quinn hisses under his breath at the heat squeezing around his dick, and then Eliot’s rolling his hips in a tight, dirty circle that has Quinn scrabbling at Eliot’s thighs, cursing in half the languages he knows while Eliot laughs at him breathlessly. 

“Hey,” Quinn says once he’s gotten a modicum of control over himself again. “C’mere and kiss me.”

“Well, since you asked so nicely.” Eliot leans down to capture Quinn’s mouth in a lazy kiss, and Quinn takes that opportunity to curl an arm around Eliot’s waist and push up off the bed with the other arm to roll them sideways, pressing Eliot into the mattress with a grin when they break apart. Eliot raises an eyebrow. “Y’know, that was supposed to be your birthday present.”

Quinn has a good idea what Eliot means, but he deliberately acts obtuse and asks, “Are you saying that you’re my birthday present?

“No, you asshole.” Even as he scowls, Eliot hooks his ankles behind Quinn’s back and pulls him in a little tighter. “I meant that I was gonna do all the work for you.”

“Well, maybe later today.” Quinn dips down to kiss the corner of Eliot’s mouth, then thrusts hard enough that Eliot chokes on a gasp. “Maybe we could even put a nice ribbon around you.”

“Like hell,” Eliot growls, and then moans when Quinn snaps his hips forward again. It takes him a moment to get his breath back to give Quinn a sly grin. “You can’t have something that’s already yours be your birthday present.”

Quinn feels his heart skip a traitorous beat at that. Damn, it’s unfair how Eliot somehow manages to make him feel so stupidly besotted sometimes. Every time Quinn is sure that he couldn’t be even more smitten, Eliot proves him wrong. Eliot belonging to Quinn is nothing new, and yet somehow, being reminded of that fact makes the inside of Quinn’s chest go funny, like gravity inside of him has gone haywire.

“Sweet-talker,” Quinn murmurs, trailing kisses down Eliot’s jaw and neck, pressing his mouth to Eliot’s collarbone and scraping his teeth against the sensitive skin there. “I don’t need a present. You’re good enough for me.”

Eliot laughs, threading his fingers through Quinn’s short curls and tugging on them lightly. “Well now, look who’s being a real charmer today.” He smirks and tugs harder, tilting his hips up and clenching hard around Quinn’s cock in a way that makes heat spark up Quinn’s spine. “Wanna change it up and be a nasty fucker?”

“Your lines suck,” Quinn deadpans, but he can’t help the way his mouth curves upwards. “Good thing you already have me, ‘cause nobody else is going to fall for that.”

“Don’t care ‘bout anybody else.” Eliot tugs Quinn back up to brush his mouth against Quinn’s. His smile is soft when he says, “It’s just you.”

“Just you and me,” Quinn says against Eliot’s mouth, and seals the promise with a kiss.

-

They’re just finishing up a lazy brunch when Eliot clears his throat. “So, uh.”

Quinn puts his fork down. He’d noticed Eliot’s unease right off the bat ever since they sat down to eat, and he’d been wondering how long it’d take for Eliot to crack. It doesn’t seem like Eliot has any bad news, but Quinn’s curious as to why Eliot’s acting so nervous. He’s hedging his bets on it being a birthday thing, but he honestly can’t think of anything that Eliot would want to give or suggest that would merit this kind of behavior.

“There’s something I thought I could give you,” Eliot says slowly. “You don’t have to take it, though.”

“What kind of birthday present would I say no to?” Quinn asks, bemused. “Eliot, what on earth did you get me?”

Eliot shakes his head. “I didn’t get it from—whatever. Just. You can say no, alright?”

“Okay.” Quinn tilts his head and gives Eliot his most winning smile, hoping that it’ll help soothe Eliot’s nerves. It seems to work, just a bit, so Quinn sprinkles in a little coyness, biting his lower lip the way he knows Eliot likes. “Can I see it now?”

Eliot sighs, heavy and hesitant in a way that has Quinn wondering what the hell the big deal is, and then he pulls something out of his pocket and places it on the dining table. Quinn blinks, staring at the metal glinting on top of the dark wood of the table, his brain tripping over itself as it recognizes what this is. What it implies.

They’re Eliot’s dog tags.

“You,” Quinn starts, and clears his throat because his voice very nearly broke on the first word, “want to give these to me?”

Eliot flushes. “If you don’t wanna—”

“You’re never getting them back,” Quinn immediately says, snatching the tags off the table, clutching them to his chest with a fierce kind of glee bubbling up inside of him. “These are mine now.”

Quinn knows Eliot has a messy relationship with the army and his own history within it. He also happens to know that Eliot doesn’t wear his tags as a sign of his departure for everything he used to fight for. That Eliot kept these because they still meant something. The fact that he’s giving them to Quinn means he’s giving Quinn part of his past. Part of himself. And by doing so, he’s marking Quinn as his. 

They can’t get married, not legally, but Eliot might as well have gotten down on one knee and asked right now. No fucking wonder he was so nervous. Quinn feels like his entire heart is going to escape his chest and make its way into Eliot’s. 

“We’re going out,” Quinn announces, standing up and slipping the chain on to let the tags hang from his neck. He doesn’t miss the way Eliot’s breath hitches at the sight. “Shopping. Now.”

“For what?” Eliot asks, even as he helps Quinn clear the table. 

Quinn grabs his jacket and pulls it on, gesturing for Eliot to hurry up and follow him. “For something to show that you’re mine, too.”

Eliot catches on. “We might as well be getting rings.”

“You don’t like wearing stuff on your hands.” Quinn hums, then smirks. “Or we could get matching tattoos.”

“Absolutely not,” Eliot says instantly, but he’s smiling when he follows Quinn out the door.

-

They spend the afternoon going through a dozen stores in Zürich, looking for something that satisfies both Eliot’s need for simplicity and Quinn’s need for something meaningful. In the end, Eliot surrenders and let’s Quinn pick out a necklace. Just a chain and a flat silver pendant, almost reminiscent of Eliot’s original tags, but not quite. On one side of the pendant, they get a small engraving. Just the letter _Q_ in elegant script, which makes both of them crack James Bond jokes throughout their dinner in a nice restaurant downtown.

Later that night, Quinn rides Eliot slow and steady, rocking his hips in a lazy rhythm as they trade wet kisses. Eliot looks good like this, sitting up against the headboard and naked save for the new necklace, the pendant resting against the sweat-slick skin of his chest. And going by how Eliot’s hands run up and down Quinn’s sides possessively, his blue eyes going dark with satisfaction every time he sees Quinn wearing nothing but Eliot’s dog tags, Quinn guesses that he looks good like this, too.

There’s something intimate about having sex like this, their bodies pressed close together, naked except for the small pieces of metal that prove that they belong to each other. Quinn shivers with pleasure every time Eliot murmurs how gorgeous he is like this, in nothing but the token that marks him as Eliot’s. 

When Eliot grabs the tags around Quinn’s neck and presses a kiss to the metal, looking up at Quinn through his lashes, a shudder goes through Quinn’s body, like it viscerally _felt_ the moment it was claimed entirely by Eliot. 

Then Eliot bites Quinn’s shoulder hard, leaving a very different kind of mark that he wants to keep forever, and Quinn comes with a breathless gasp.

-

They have a job that takes them back to Vancouver for a short while, which means they get to go back to the safehouse that Quinn had been sorry to leave behind. Unlike the last time they were here, Eliot doesn’t sleep on the couch, and he joins Quinn in the bedroom.

“We spent a lot of money on a couch that I’m not sleeping on anymore,” Eliot points out, because he apparently still isn’t quite over how they spent three-thousand dollars on a piece of furniture that they sit on regularly. For somebody who spent months sleeping on that very piece of furniture, Eliot is remarkably ungrateful and unappreciative.

“It’s a nice couch,” Quinn says as he finishes unpacking. They’ll only be here for three days, so he didn’t bring much stuff in the first place. “We sat on it every damn day, Eliot.”

Eliot shrugs. “Yeah, but we didn’t need such a fancy one.”

“I could say the same about our dishwasher,” Quinn grumbles, even though he likes that fancy dishwasher very much. The one they have in Zürich just isn’t quite as good. “You don’t hear me bitching about that.”

“Yeah, but,” Eliot says, clearly intent on bitching about it some more, and Quinn drags Eliot out of the bedroom and shoves him onto the couch.

After Quinn fucks Eliot a consecutive three times on the couch that’s going to need professional cleaning to get the stains out of the upholstery, Eliot admits, “Okay, so this thing’s pretty decent.”

“Damn, I should’ve had sex with you on this couch back when we lived here,” Quinn says, laying on Eliot’s chest and enjoying the sensation of Eliot petting his hair. “If only I’d known that’d be the key to making you stop hating the damn thing.”

“Did you wanna have sex with me back then?” Eliot asks, sounding curious.

Quinn thinks for a moment, sorting out his memories. “Sort of, starting near the last month or so while we were here.”

“Huh.” Eliot’s hand slips down to massage Quinn’s nape, and Quinn sighs in contentment, nuzzling against the warm skin of Eliot’s chest. “A few months after me, then.”

That makes Quinn lift his head to look at Eliot in bewilderment. “Wait, since when?”

Eliot’s gaze darts away to the side, looking somewhere between nervous and embarrassed. “Ever since the first time you told me about your parents.”

Quinn blinks. “Eliot, that’s like…the weirdest kink I’ve ever heard of.”

“Fuck off, it wasn’t the parent thing!” Eliot scowls at him. “It was just—I felt like the luckiest guy on earth, when you told me all that. The fact that you trusted me enough to tell me about your parents and how you grew up and everything. So I was thinking that I wanted to, I don’t know, be worth it.” He flushes a little, his voice dropping to a grumble. “Be good enough for you, or something like that.” 

“You were always worth it,” Quinn says quietly, pressing a kiss to Eliot’s sternum. “Always.”

The hand in Quinn’s hair grabs his curls and tugs him upwards, hauling him up for an achingly sweet kiss. When they break apart, Eliot doesn’t say anything. He just presses his forehead against Quinn’s, breathing in sync with him, blue eyes fluttering closed as he does so. As if he could push all the feelings he can’t put into words into Quinn’s head through sheer willpower.

And for all that it shouldn’t be possible, Quinn feels like he understands what Eliot is trying to share. Quinn is fluent in over half a dozen languages, but he still doesn’t have enough words to express what Eliot means to him. So maybe what he and Eliot want to tell each other are the same things. A wordless longing. A nameless kind of adoration. Devotion that defies all words and boundaries. 

As they breathe together, Quinn presses a hand over Eliot’s heart and hopes like hell Eliot hears all the things he doesn’t know how to say.

Going by the way Eliot’s breath shudders out of him, callused hands coming up to frame Quinn’s face as blue eyes finally open to look at him reverently, he has a feeling that Eliot heard him loud and clear.

-

An old contact of Quinn’s reaches out to him, asking for help. He’s getting out of the game, he explains, and he needs somebody to help tie some loose ends. Quinn owes the guy a favor anyway, so he takes his winter coat and his sniper rifle with him.

“You didn’t have to come along for this one,” Quinn says as they walk through the busy streets of Moscow. He’s stowed the rifle away for now, because he’ll need it tomorrow. Today is about working at ground-level and seeing who comes after Quinn’s contact and runs into them instead.

Eliot scoffs. “Right, because I was just gonna sit around doing nothing in Zürich while you went to have fun beating up SVR agents.”

Quinn isn’t complaining. He likes having Eliot come along with him. But he does take a moment to wonder if both of them are incapable of spending time apart from each other now. He’s pretty sure they could, if needs must, but there’s no real reason to. Quinn’s happy to never be separated from Eliot for the rest of his life.

“Most people think dealing with a dozen Russian Foreign Intelligence Service agents is kinda terrifying,” Quinn points out.

“You sayin’ that you’re not gonna have fun?” Eliot gives Quinn an unimpressed look that says he sees right through him. Which, well. Fair enough.

“I probably will,” Quinn concedes, “but I still hate going up against intelligence agencies.”

Eliot shoots him a knowing look. One that says he understands that Quinn has complicated feelings about espionage, just like how Eliot has complicated feelings about the military. Then Eliot’s brow furrows. “None of ‘em ever tried to recruit you?”

Quinn shrugs. “A couple of them, unofficially. I said no.”

“Smart choice.” Eliot shoves his hands in his coat pockets and sighs. “We have four.”

“Five,” Quinn corrects. “That white sedan’s definitely been circling every block we walked through in the pasty twenty minutes.”

“They should’ve brought more than that,” Eliot says, because he’s an adrenaline junkie of a bastard. It probably says unflattering things about Quinn that he finds this part of Eliot charming as hell. 

And Quinn isn’t much better, anyway.

He grins. “Wanna bet who knocks out more of them?”

“Loser has to clean the bathroom for a month,” Eliot says in a placid tone, like they’re not making a wager over an impending fight with a handful of deadly agents.

Quinn’s grin grows wider as they deliberately head toward a more isolated location. “You’re on.”

-

Every once in a while, Quinn washes Eliot’s hair for him. Helps him dry it and brushes it carefully. Not a lot of men look great with their hair grown out, in Quinn’s opinion, but Eliot looks incredibly attractive this way. The shorter hair he sported when he first met Quinn was nice, too, but this style suits Eliot even better.

He likes playing with Eliot’s hair. It’s incredibly soft, and Eliot melts a little into Quinn’s touch whenever he runs his hands through it. And although Eliot does grumble quite a bit when Quinn decides to braid his hair for fun, he never really puts a stop to it, either. 

Quinn asks, just the once, if there’s a reason Eliot’s growing his hair out. Eliot shrugs and says something about how he’s doing it so that old enemies recognize him less. Quinn suspects that it also has to do with how Eliot supposedly kept his hair cropped short during his time in the army, and this is his way of distancing himself from those days. He doesn’t bring that up, though.

Eliot likes Quinn’s hair too, what with how often he touches it when they’re slumped against each other on the couch or laying in bed together or when Quinn’s sucking Eliot off.

“You’d look good with longer hair,” Eliot once muses as he spoons Quinn from behind, nearly asleep.

Quinn rolls his eyes. “Trying to give us matching hairstyles instead of tattoos?”

Eliot laughs and presses a kiss to Quinn’s nape. “Nah, just thinking it’d be nice to pull on while I’m fucking you from behind.”

Shit, that shouldn’t be as tempting as it is. “I’ll think about it.”

-

In the end, he doesn’t grow out his hair—mostly because he tries, and realizes halfway through that he doesn’t have the perseverance to wait til it’s long enough to tie back—but Eliot finds him irresistible anyway, so Quinn doesn’t think it’s much of a loss.

-

One afternoon, Quinn comes back from a grocery run to find Eliot leaning his hip against the back of the couch and fiddling with his phone, his mouth pressed together in a flat line as he glances up at Quinn. The sight immediately has Quinn tensing up. The fact that Eliot doesn’t start talking straight away means it isn’t urgent, though, so he takes a moment to go drop the bag of groceries on the kitchen counter and then return to the living room.

“What’s up?” Quinn asks, shooting a meaningful glance at the phone before he looks back up at Eliot’s cautious gaze.

“We got a job offer.” Eliot turns the phone over once, twice, in his hand. Eliot rarely ever fidgets—never, unless he’s alone with Quinn and extraordinarily conflicted or unhappy—and Quinn knows this isn’t the time to push Eliot into an explanation. Instead, he takes Eliot’s hand, the one not holding the phone, and holds it in one of his own, stroking over the knuckles with his thumb and waiting. Soon enough, Eliot squeezes Quinn’s hand, knitting their fingers together and holding tight as he says, “We’d be working with the American government. Unofficially.”

Quinn blinks. They’ve worked for government agencies before. Some of it was clean work. Some of it, not so much. Either way, he doesn’t understand why this one is any different, so he carefully says, “Any complications?”

Eliot snorts, and it’s not his usual fond, exasperated one. This one is sharper. Almost angry. “Lots of ‘em, to be honest. Biggest one is that they asked me because they know me.” He gives Quinn a grim look. “They don’t need to know you.”

It takes Quinn a moment to realize where Eliot’s going with this. “You’re not taking this job alone.”

“I don’t want them anywhere fucking near you,” Eliot says, and there’s that flash of protectiveness that Quinn both loves and hates. “Quinn, once you actually work for them, you’re never gonna shake ‘em off for good.”

“Then say no. Don’t take the job.” Even as Quinn speaks, he knows Eliot will go. For all that he’s turned his back on serving his country, Eliot is still too loyal to it. Not to the government, but to the people. And Eliot Spencer’s loyalty is both a blessing and a curse. “You either stay here or you take me with you. I’m not letting you suffer through shit on your own, okay?”

Eliot stares at Quinn with a torn, hesitant look in his eyes, like he desperately wants to convince Quinn to not do this. Quinn can clearly see the way Eliot’s trying to come up with a sufficient argument to change his mind, but Quinn’s always been better at pushing all the right buttons to make Eliot give up.

So he steps into Eliot’s space, until there’s only an inch between them, and looks Eliot in the eye as he says, “Don’t you fucking dare leave me behind.”

Eliot’s mouth opens. Closes. Opens again on a shaky, defeated sigh. “This isn’t like that. It’s just one job.”

“You can go on a job without me for a lot of reasons,” Quinn says. “But not because you’re trying to spare me. Not to protect me. Especially not when things are gonna be hard on you.” He taps his forehead against Eliot’s. “You don’t get to go through hell without me.”

“It’s not gonna be _that_ bad.” Eliot’s eyes flutter shut. “Just don’t want you getting dragged into this kind of shit.”

Quinn scoffs. “I’ve been getting into all kinds of shit even before I met you. Don’t be so dramatic.”

“Fine, fine.” Eliot pulls away, eyes blinking open, the brittle, near-cracked look in them gone. He still doesn’t look entirely happy, but he’s holding on to Quinn's hand and not letting go. “I should’ve known you’d be like this.”

“You should’ve,” Quinn agrees, and kisses Eliot just to help that last bit of tension melt away from Eliot’s body. 

When they break apart, Eliot gives Quinn a piercing look. Like he’s figured out more than Quinn intended to let on. “You know I’d never leave you, right?”

Quinn shrugs. He knows that. It doesn’t change the fact that somehow he’s still scared of the possibility. That some day Eliot might finally change his mind and walk away from him. “Yeah, I know.”

Eliot narrows his eyes, then shakes his head, as if he’s deliberately deciding to leave the matter alone. “Well, since you’re coming, we’ll have to establish some ground rules.”

“Ground rules?” Quinn asks, raising both eyebrows.

“Yeah. Number one: you do not, under any circumstances, tell Shelley about our sex lives, no matter how much he asks about it.”

Quinn nods. “Sure.” He pauses. “Wait, _Shelley_?”

-

“I cannot,” Shelley says with a delighted tone and a shit-eating grin, “believe that you actually settled down with somebody, Eliot Spencer.”

Eliot scowls as he straps another knife to his ankle. “Shelley, shut the fuck up.”

“Aren’t you too old for him?” Shelley asks, and Eliot throws a boot at his face. Shelley ducks, cackling. He then cocks his head, sizing Quinn up with eyes as sharp as a honed knife despite his easy smile. Quinn knows, from Eliot’s occasional reminiscing and from the basics he was given before they got on the plane to Botswana, that Shelley is one of the best hand-to-hand combatants Eliot’s ever met. And judging by the confident, easy way he moves, Quinn can tell that Shelley’s easygoing attitude is hiding something much more guarded and dangerous. “I mean, I’ve got no idea how old you are, since nobody seems to have a damn clue where you came from.”

“Shelley,” Eliot says in a warning tone.

“I’m just saying, it’s interesting how there’s absolutely no record of your boyfriend existing until a few years ago.” Shelley shrugs and turns away from Quinn. “Don’t worry, nobody’s interested enough to go digging deeper.”

“I’ve always wanted to be only moderately interesting,” Quinn says, and Shelley shoots him an amused look while Eliot huffs and retrieves his boot.

-

The first day of the job isn’t terribly hard. It’s dirty work, but it’s not exactly black ops, either. Eliot knocks out a dozen men on his own, while Quinn shoots down just as many men, mostly through the kneecaps. Shelley kills the rest. There are two other people in their group as well: an interrogator and an engineer. Those two get to work when Eliot and Quinn drag the militia’s leader into the back of the armored truck and Shelley finds the bomb they’d been looking for. 

The hard part isn’t the job. It’s the way Eliot and Shelley are friendly in a pained way that stems from a shared past and a diverged path. There’s genuine brotherhood there, a kind of bond full of good-natured barbs and jokes and trust in having each other’s backs, but Quinn can tell that it’s been stretched thin. Worn ragged by time and distance and a fundamental disagreement over what they’re willing to do for their country. It’s in the way Eliot sometimes exhales, deep and frustrated, looking away from Shelley after a joke about how Eliot is always welcome back here, or in the way Shelley frowns slightly when Eliot mentions a past job that involved a dirty dealing with a foreign government. Quinn can feel the strain between them when they both trail off mid-laugh into bittersweet silence.

Then the second day comes and everything gets harder. Quinn gets stabbed. Eliot fractures his wrist. Shelley gets a gash on his left temple from a sharp blow to the head. The militia leader starts screaming inside the interrogation room they’ve set up at their base of operations, and Quinn watches Eliot clean blood off of his knives until he can’t take it anymore and he walks outside. 

It’s not that he can’t handle the rising body count of this job, or the screaming, or the sight of blood on Eliot’s hands. It just that he hates the resignation on Eliot’s face. Hates the weariness in the line of his shoulders and the melancholy in his eyes. Seeing Eliot reluctantly slot himself back into a role he loathes makes Quinn want to take Eliot and run from this place, all the way back to Zürich, where the stench of blood isn’t so strong and Eliot smiles more freely. 

He can’t take Eliot back to Zürich just yet, though, so he settles for pulling Eliot close as they fall asleep that night, melding his chest to Eliot’s back and tangling their legs together, pressing his hand over Eliot’s heart.

He breathes a little easier when Eliot’s hand covers his own, squeezing once in silent thanks.

On the third day, they wrap things up. It all goes pretty smoothly, right up until four militia members manage to kidnap their engineer to hold her hostage in exchange for their leader. In response, Shelley takes the bloody, shaking militia leader to the nearby abandoned church, where the men are waiting with the engineer. And in the middle of so-called negotiations, Quinn manages to slip in through the back door and get a clear line of sight to aim his Beretta.

He kills all four men in less than three seconds. 

Later, once they’ve collected their engineer and taken care of loose ends, Shelley laments that it’s a shame he can’t recruit Quinn. It’s obviously a joke, with maybe a hint of genuine feeling, but Eliot bristles like a wet cat at the statement. Before Eliot can snap out a sharp reply, Quinn calmly tells Shelley that he’s flattered, but he’s already taken.

That makes Eliot deflate into mild embarrassment mixed with satisfaction, which is what Quinn was going for, and Shelley laughs, looking at Quinn with something akin to approval in his eyes. 

In the end, Quinn is glad he came along for this job. Even if it means garnering attention he never wanted, it’s worth it to have Eliot pull him into a secluded corner of their base, kissing him and thanking him for keeping him sane. It’s worth it.

-

“Be careful,” Shelley says at the airport, right while Eliot’s gone to the bathroom. “Lots of people are going to want you. Both of you.”

Quinn quirks a small smile. “Thanks for the heads up.”

“I’d tell you two to stay out of trouble, but I bet that isn’t how you roll.” Shelley cocks his head and flashes him a grin. “Just try not to work with the wrong people, yeah?”

“We’ll do our best,” Quinn says dryly.

Shelley chuckles, then goes quiet. After a moment, he says, “Thanks for taking care of him.”

Quinn’s throat goes tight with emotion at those words, enough so that his voice won’t work, so he ends up nodding once. They don’t say anything else; they just stand there in silence, until Eliot comes back.

-

They take odd jobs here and there for a few weeks, but Quinn can tell that the aftertaste of the job in Botswana is still lingering in Eliot’s mouth. So Quinn pulls a few strings, asks around his contacts for intel, and finally secures the perfect job. 

It’s a retrieval with a fairly high difficulty level, but low danger and high payout. It’s like stealing a fairy tale. Simple and fun and something that could be memorable.

So Quinn drags Eliot all the way to Washington DC, refusing to tell him what the job actually entails except for the fact that minimal bloodshed is expected, and checks into a nice hotel suite where they drop their bags off before going out into the city. Quinn spends half an afternoon seeing the sights with Eliot, who grumbles but eventually gives in and follows Quinn’s lead.

Finally, Quinn gives Eliot a sly look and says, “So, you wanna know what the package is?”

“You gonna tell me now?” Eliot asks, raising an eyebrow.

Quinn doesn’t say anything. Instead, he shrugs and very blatantly looks around them, where they’ve been wandering the Smithsonian.

Eliot blinks. “It’s here?” He scans their vicinity, clearly unsure as to which of the priceless treasures here they’re meant to steal. “You wanna give me a more specific hint?”

“It’s green,” Quinn says slowly.

“How the fuck am I supposed to know just from _that_?” Eliot asks, then pauses. “Green?” 

Quinn smirks.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Eliot hisses, lowering his voice so that nobody can overhear them. “We’re gonna steal the Dresden Green Diamond?”

“It’ll be fun!” Quinn bumps his shoulder against Eliot’s, forcing him into moving towards a different display case so they can act like they’re actually looking at the museum exhibits. “C’mon, museums are always fun.”

“Security is gonna be hell,” Eliot grumbles, but he’s already sneaking quick glances around, clocking the guards and alarm sensors. “Especially since this one’s on loan. Must be on a hell of an insurance policy. Not to mention it’s right next to the goddamn Hope Diamond right now.” He shoots Quinn a puzzled look. “We’re not taking both of ‘em?”

“Don’t be greedy,” Quinn teases, and then yelps when Eliot elbows him in the side. “Look, the client only wants the Dresden Green. She thinks the Hope Diamond is actually cursed.”

Eliot rolls his eyes, but he looks thoughtful now. “How are we getting this back to the client? Are we transporting it out of DC?”

“Client is in Virginia,” Quinn explains. “She’ll fly in next Wednesday to pick it up. I’m guessing she has a way to transport it safely.”

“So, we have five days to prep and pull off a heist of one of the most famous diamonds in the world.” Eliot sighs, rubbing his face with one hand. “Dammit, Quinn.”

“I mean, if you wanna give up, that’s fine.” Quinn has a hard time maintaining his mock-innocent tone in the face of Eliot’s glare. He barely manages to swallow down a snicker as he continues, “Nothing wrong with admitting that something’s above your paygrade.”

“Fuck you,” Eliot growls. “We’re doing this. As if robbing a damn museum is _above my fucking paygrade_.”

“That’s the spirit,” Quinn says cheerfully. “This is going to be fun!”

-

It is, in fact, incredibly fun. Quinn has always found the meticulous planning process for a robbery pretty enjoyable, and Eliot, despite all his bitching, is excellent at casing locations and noting down every single security feature. They take two days to get a good grasp on the security: camera angles, security guard rotations, detailed blueprints of the building; basically the whole package. They spend a full day coming up with two dozen plans, then eliminate them one by one until they have the three best ones left. The day after that, they hone all three plans to near-perfection until they can decide on their strongest one, leaving the other two as backups. 

Then they actually rob the goddamn Smithsonian. 

They don’t even have to punch anybody—well, Eliot chokes out a security guard and Quinn has to threaten another one at gunpoint, but they don’t actually _punch_ anybody. It takes them less than thirty minutes, and then they’re back in their hotel room just as the sun is rising, the world’s most famous green diamond in Quinn’s hands. 

“I can’t believe we actually pulled it off,” Quinn says, his whole body thrumming with adrenaline and glee. He hands over the diamond to Eliot, watching blue eyes gleam with awe and satisfaction. The way Eliot’s mouth stretches into a wide grin, completely devoid of the shadows left behind by Botswana, is everything Quinn was hoping for when he found this job. “Eliot, we stole the Dresden Green from the fucking Smithsonian.”

Eliot looks up from the diamond, still grinning, and then he’s hauling Quinn in by the front of his turtleneck to kiss him, biting at his lower lip and tugging it between his teeth, soothing the sting with his tongue before he licks his way into Quinn’s mouth. 

The adrenaline rush in Quinn’s system immediately funnels into a flush of heat, excitement boiling into arousal that burns under his skin. When he crowds against Eliot, pressing their hips together, he can feel that Eliot’s hard in his jeans, much like how Quinn is hard in his, already drooling a wet patch into his underwear. 

He breaks away from the kiss to nip at Eliot’s ear and whisper, “I think you should fuck me now, darlin’.”

“Jesus.” Eliot chokes when Quinn grinds against him. “Fuck, get your damn clothes off.”

They leave the diamond on the bedside table and strip down fast, impatient and still running on the high of what they’ve achieved. Eliot tackles Quinn onto the bed, kissing him like he wants to devour him, hungry and desperate. It takes Quinn smacking Eliot’s ass for him to finally draw back and pour the lube over his fingers, and by then Quinn’s already halfway there, too keyed up and trembling all over, his dick drooling precome steadily while Eliot finally slides a finger into him.

Eliot, the bastard that he is, easily catches onto how far gone Quinn is already, and he ruthlessly slides in a second finger and presses his fingertips to where Quinn is the most sensitive. The electric crackle of pure pleasure ratcheting up Quinn’s spine makes him whine, low and breathy, his knees drawing up instinctively as he twists his hips, half-caught between seeking more pleasure and shying away from it. Eliot doesn’t give him a break, though; he thrusts his fingers in again, deliberately aiming for Quinn’s prostate, and Quinn swears under his breath, his whole body jerking at stimulation. 

“Son of a bitch,” Quinn gasps when Eliot adds another finger, unerringly hitting that spot that sends a seismic shock of pleasure throughout Quinn’s body. “I’m not gonna— _fuck_ —last if you keep doing that.”

“Yeah, that’s kinda what I’m going for.” Eliot wraps his free hand around Quinn’s dick at the same time as he thrusts his fingers inside, and Quinn is too close to the edge to care about lasting, now. He feels the pleasure mounting under his skin as Eliot touches him, faster and harder and rougher until Quinn’s coming apart with a shattered moan. 

It’s only as he’s getting his breath back that he realizes Eliot’s ripping a condom packet open with his teeth, and he has to quickly regain the ability to speak English to pant a breathless, “No.”

Eliot pauses, brows furrowing. “No to what, exactly?”

“No condom,” Quinn says.

That makes Eliot hesitate, his gaze flickering from the condom to Quinn’s lube-slick rim to Quinn’s face. “You sure about this?”

“Been sure for a while,” Quinn says. “Wanna feel you come inside me.”

Eliot’s mutters a vehement _fuck_ under his breath, cock twitching at Quinn’s words. Finally drops the condom onto the bed. “Okay, yeah. I want it, too.” He slides his hands down the Quinn’s thighs. “Want you.”

Quinn smiles and tilts his hips up, spreading his knees as the anticipation washes over him, warmth bleeding into heat, even when he’s still shaky from his previous orgasm, still sensitive and breathless. He’s been wanting this for too long to wait even a second more. “C’mon, darlin’. Fill me up.”

“You’re a goddamn menace,” Eliot says, slicking his cock up and pressing the head of it to where Quinn is wet and aching, teasing the rim for a slow and lazy moment. Then, before Quinn can make an impatient retort, he pushes his way inside in a single thrust that makes Quinn choke on his words. His thighs squeeze around Eliot as he instinctively clenches down, making Eliot swear, his hands gripping Quinn’s hips hard enough to leave bruises. “Shit, _Quinn_.”

In terms of physical sensation, it isn’t hugely different from having a thin layer of latex between them; Quinn could guess that the difference is a little more pronounced from Eliot’s end, going by the hitch in his breathing and the wide-eyed look on his face, but physically, Quinn can’t feel any significant difference. 

But in terms of emotional gratification, Quinn feels like his whole body is burning from the inside-out from how searingly _hot_ Eliot is inside of him. His breath has been stolen from his lungs, all the oxygen used up to fuel the fire in his blood, and he thinks that he wouldn’t mind drowning in the heat of this moment. The pleasure flushing through him is visceral and revelatory in a way that he couldn’t have expected, and he feels drunk on it, near-delirious with a primal kind of satisfaction of having Eliot with absolutely nothing between them.

“Eliot,” Quinn says when he remembers how to breathe, “ _move_.”

Thankfully, Eliot doesn’t even bother to tease him or draw things out. He simply pulls back, all the way until only the head of his cock is still inside Quinn, and then he slams back in, hard enough that Quinn’s breath punches out of his lungs with a broken groan. It hurts, just enough to make the pleasure even sweeter as it sharply thrills up Quinn’s spine. 

“Fuck, you look so good with my cock in you,” Eliot says, his tone admiring and hungry. “Makes me wanna tie you to the bed and never let you out of it.”

The idea of that shouldn’t be as arousing as it is, but right now, Quinn thinks there’s nothing else he’d rather want. Just the thought of being at Eliot’s mercy, helpless under his touch and full of his cock, fucked over and over and over—shit, Quinn is so turned on that he can’t even reply. All he can do is clench down hard, making Eliot shudder.

“Like that, sweetheart?” Eliot thrusts into him again, and Quinn thinks he’s melting from how good it feels. “Want me to keep you in bed until you don’t even remember your own name?”

Quinn responds by moaning, low and shaky, then hooking his ankles behind Eliot’s back and pulling him in. Taking the hint, Eliot fucks Quinn faster, changing up the angle so that he’s hitting Quinn’s prostate with every thrust of his hips and sending electric bliss crackling through Quinn’s nervous system. The whole experience is all the more intense because Quinn’s still sensitive from his previous orgasm, and he’s hard again in no time at all.

Despite the fact that he must’ve been just as keyed up as Quinn from their successful heist, Eliot manages to hold out from coming long enough that Quinn starts feeling that familiar tension coiling deep in his gut again. His cock is dribbling precome all over his stomach and he’s moaning loud enough that the whole hotel might hear them, and his whole body feels like it’s melting under Eliot’s touch.

Eliot must sense that Quinn’s about to come again, because he starts fucking Quinn even faster, running his mouth the whole time. “You’re so gorgeous like this, fuck. Can’t wait to see you full and dripping with my come. C’mon, sweetheart, you’re so close. I have you, beautiful.”

The tension coils tighter and tighter, and then the final push comes when Eliot’s hips stutter to a stop, his cock buried all the way inside Quinn as a low groan catches in his chest. The implications of it, the thought of Eliot filling him up right now, makes the tension snap and Quinn’s brain white out. His whole body shakes uncontrollably as he comes, untouched, spurting all over his already messy stomach and chest. He gasps through the orgasm, unable to stop the filthy whine that escapes his throat when Eliot shoves his hips forward, just enough for his softening dick to press against Quinn’s prostate, sending a particularly strong aftershock wracking through Quinn’s body. 

Finally, Eliot pulls out, and Quinn’s breath hitches when he feels the wetness inside of him, leaking out between his legs, and he can’t help but make an embarrassing sound at the sensation of it.

Then he sees the look on Eliot’s face, somewhere between awestruck and greedy, and the sheer reverence in those blue eyes makes Quinn’s whole body feel hot all over again. Impulsively, he reaches a hand down to slide two fingers into himself, and he shivers to find out wet he is, full of Eliot’s come. It’ll be a bitch to clean that out later, but right now he’s unbearably pleased. Especially with the choked noise Eliot makes, watching Quinn finger himself, so he lazily spreads his legs wider for Eliot to get a good look. Once he’s done exploring the new feeling of being filled up like this, Quinn pulls his fingers out and pushes them into his mouth to suck them clean. 

Eliot makes a strangled noise that has Quinn smiling as he pulls his fingers out with a pop. Mirth bleeds into Quinn’s voice when he says, “We’re never buying condoms again.”

“I ain’t arguing against that.” Eliot presses a thumb into Quinn, and the wet, squelching noise of it is loud in the otherwise quiet room. Eliot doesn’t do much but trace the inside of Quinn’s rim, in a way that’s both soothing and teasing, and Quinn shivers a little at the residual flickers of pleasure the touch sends through his body. “Kinda wanna eat you out like this.”

_That_ has Quinn’s soft dick twitching. “What’s stopping you?”

“Wanna fuck you again,” Eliot says easily. “While you’re still full like this. Wanna fill you up even more.”

“Oh my god.” Now Quinn wants that, too. “Okay, you should fuck me and then eat me out.”

Eliot chuckles, leaning down to kiss Quinn wet and slow. “Sounds like a plan.”

-

They have arguments sometimes. Over inane things, for the most part. Like whose turn it is to do the laundry or which jobs to take. Whether to buy new silverware or who has the better plan for infiltrating a private security firm to retrieve a package. Most of these arguments usually last ten minutes. Sometimes up to an hour. They’re usually back to complete agreement before the day is over.

Just a few times, though, they fight. _Really_ fight. Vicious and angry, unable to cede ground to each other, and arguments like these last for hours, maybe even days. Once, Quinn banished Eliot to the couch.

This time, Quinn doesn’t bother talking to Eliot at all, and simply brings a pillow and blanket to the couch, snubbing Eliot clearly and settling in for the night. 

Eliot doesn’t make him breakfast in the morning, and Quinn deliberately leaves the house and stays out all day, eventually ending up in a pub, nursing a beer and silently fuming. He knows, rationally, that he’ll have to make up with Eliot eventually. They always do. 

Inevitably, one of them will drag the other to the local gym, and they’ll spar and fight and rage against each other until all that’s left are apologies and admitting that maybe they should’ve listened more and argued less. That tends to end with them tumbling into the bed together, making up for all the anger and hurt until they’re laughing against each other’s mouths like the fight never happened at all.

But for now, Quinn is furious. Even more than what they actually fought over, he hates the fact that they fought at all. It’s weird. Every time he has a serious argument with Eliot, Quinn feels a little betrayed. He knows it’s stupid, he _knows_ , but it feels wrong for the two of them to be on opposing sides, refusing to give in or compromise. There’s that childish, sulky part of Quinn that wants Eliot to always agree with him. Little things, he’s willing to let slide. But bigger things, important things—he hates it when they clash on those.

No relationship can be a hundred percent smooth sailing, but dammit, Quinn wishes the two of them were the exception to that rule.

He’s sipping his beer right when the sun is starting to dip below the horizon when Eliot shows up.

“C’mon, Quinn,” Eliot says, gruff but not angry. “Let’s go.”

Quinn scowls. He might hate arguing with Eliot, but he sure as hell won’t apologize just yet. Not over this. “Fuck off. I’m not gonna kick your ass if you’re gonna be an asshole about it.”

“We’re not doing that,” Eliot says. “Quinn, come home.”

That makes Quinn pause, because they’ve never referred to anywhere as _home_ before. It’s always _the apartment_ or _the flat_ or _the house_. Never home. The fact that Eliot’s choosing to use that word means something, and it’s enough for Quinn to let go of his beer and his anger, if only for now. “Alright.”

When Quinn gets back to the house— _home_ , a treacherous, hopeful part of him whispers—there’s a full dinner on the dining table, a whole buffet of Quinn’s favorite foods. The sight alone is enough to thaw out a good chunk of Quinn’s resentment.

“Look,” Eliot says, his thumbs hooked into the belt loops of his jeans in a clear effort to not cross his arms. Quinn leans against the wall behind him and waits for Eliot to continue. “I’m sorry for acting like you can’t take care of yourself. I didn’t mean to make it seem like I think you’re not capable of doing your job.”

Quinn raises an eyebrow.

Eliot sighs. “I’m sorry for following you to your job even when you told me you wanted to do this one alone.”

Quinn raises the other eyebrow.

“And I’m sorry that I didn’t stay home when I’m still recovering from the flu,” Eliot finishes.

“I’m good at what I do,” Quinn finally says. It’s a reiteration of what he yelled yesterday, but he’s calmer now that he knows Eliot’s hearing him. “I don’t need you to coddle me or try to protect me when I can take handle things on my own. You should’ve trusted me.”

Eliot looks guilty enough that Quinn can feel the residual anger drain away. “I do. I’m sorry I made it look like I don’t.”

Quinn breathes in, then breathes out. Lets the rest of his frustration evaporate. “I’m sorry for overreacting. I shouldn’t have said, uh, that you’re clingy and pathetic.”

“To be fair, I was a little clingy and pathetic,” Eliot says, the corners of his mouth quirking up, and then everything’s slotting back in, right where they belong, and Quinn’s stepping into Eliot’s space and kissing him, soft and chaste. 

“Forgive me?” Eliot asks against Quinn’s mouth.

“As if I could ever stay angry at you,” Quinn murmurs, and kisses Eliot one more time.

-

Eliot gets captured during a job gone wrong in the outskirts of Budapest. It takes Quinn six hours to track him down.

Six hours. A lot of damage can be done in six hours.

When Quinn finally finds Eliot in a dirty warehouse, chained and gagged, bleeding out from the sadistically, carefully administered stab wounds in his torso, he’s simultaneously relieved as fuck and livid as hell. 

There were nine men involved in the capture and torture of Eliot Spencer.

Quinn makes sure to kill all of them. 

He makes sure they die slowly.

-

Eliot spends three days in the local hospital, feverish and weakened by the infected stab wounds and broken bones. There’d been fourteen stabs to the chest and stomach. Two broken fingers, three broken ribs, fractured cheekbone, and a shattered collarbone. 

Three days. Quinn nearly loses his goddamn mind.

He bribes the hospital personnel to look the other way when he stays long past visiting hours, sitting by Eliot’s bedside and watching the rise and fall of Eliot’s chest. He holds Eliot’s hand—the left one, the one without any broken fingers—and presses careful kisses to it, trying to ground himself through the touch of Eliot’s rough skin against his lips. 

Eliot is alive. He’ll make a full recovery. The doctors assured him of this; that the scarring might be ugly and that physical therapy could be necessary, but that Eliot would be fine. 

Quinn reminds himself of this, over and over, but he can barely sleep. He keeps jerking awake, terribly sure that he’s heard Eliot’s heart monitor stop beeping. Quinn’s never been this terrified before. Those days back in London when he was worried that Eliot would abandon him are nothing compared to right now. Quinn would rather take being tied to a chair and stuck with a mobster holding a nail gun over this terror sinking into his bones as he sits and waits for three goddamn days.

When Eliot finally wakes up, lucid and just a little loopy from painkillers, Quinn’s so relieved that he nearly cries.

“Was so fucking worried that the last thing I ever saw wouldn’t be you,” Eliot slurs, and Quinn presses a kiss to Eliot’s palm, trembling with relief and something like heartbreak at Eliot’s words. Eliot smiles, because he’s a beautiful bastard of a man who will always think of Quinn before he thinks of himself. “You’re okay, yeah?”

_No, I’m not_ , Quinn thinks. _I won’t be okay if anything happened to you. It’d fucking destroy me._

“No injuries,” Quinn says, because it’s true.

It’s a testament to how strong the painkillers are that Eliot doesn’t think to interrogate Quinn’s roundabout answer and instead closes his eyes with a contented sigh. “That’s good.”

Watching Eliot drift off, Quinn reassesses himself. He’s always been sure he’d survive no matter what, because that’s what he does, but now, he’s not sure. He’s not sure if he could survive a world that doesn’t have Eliot Spencer.

He’s not sure he wants to survive that kind of world.

-

Quinn takes Eliot back to their home after a couple more days, which involves a lot of bribery and thinly-veiled threats to check Eliot out of the hospital early and get them both onto a private jet. Once they’re back in Zürich, Quinn sets up regular doctor’s appointments for Eliot, steamrolling over Eliot’s complaints and insistence that he doesn’t need it, and he bans Eliot from the kitchen unless it’s to grab something to drink from the fridge.

“You’re a fucking mother hen,” Eliot grumbles, and Quinn doesn’t deign to answer that. He simply stuffs another pillow behind Eliot’s back so that he’s resting comfortably against the headboard of their bed.

Quinn’s been slowly adding to his repertoire of recipes over the last year or so, so he cooks lunch and dinner—Eliot’s exhausted enough that he sleeps right through breakfast time, which is such an anomaly that Quinn feels a little unnerved by it—and he makes sure to check Eliot’s stitches regularly. He even helps Eliot shower, mostly because trying to wash your hair with broken ribs and fingers is a bitch, and they don’t even get frisky under the hot water for once.

A week passes by in this manner, which is enough time for Eliot to regain most of his strength and energy while also resigning himself to the reality that he’s going to be stuck like this for the time being. Eliot doesn’t quite relax into being taken care of—he’s too stubborn and too Eliot Spencer for that—but he reluctantly allows it to happen, which is all that Quinn could ask for, really.

They’re not taking any jobs until Eliot’s fully recovered, Quinn decides. Quinn might take a solo job or two once Eliot’s nearly back in top shape, but for now, he’s going to play nurse for Eliot until the casts come off and the scars on Eliot’s skin aren’t so fresh.

To be truthful, he’s not sure he could handle being even remotely apart from Eliot for a long while.

Neither of them want to get a case of cabin fever, though, so once Quinn is sure Eliot isn’t going to be too exhausted, they go into the city center to eat and watch movies and even take walks by the lake.

It occurs to Quinn, at some point during one of those days as they’re eating Peruvian cuisine and playing footsie under the table, that these could probably qualify as dates. It’s a weird concept to apply to him and Eliot, but it’s not an uncomfortable one.

During one of such evening walks by the lake, Eliot says, “Thanks, y’know, for saving my life.”

“You’ve saved mine plenty of times, too,” Quinn says easily.

“Yeah, but I mean…” Eliot trails off, then stops walking. Quinn stops and turns, curious as to where this is going. “You saved my life, back when we first met.”

Quinn thinks back to their first meeting. Sure, they’d helped each other out, but he doesn’t think that was really life-saving in any kind of way. “All I did was let you stay in my hotel room, though.”

“And then you decided to stick with me.” Eliot’s voice is steady and his eyes are sincere as they meet Quinn’s. It’s a rare thing for Eliot to share his heart so openly, so honestly, without prevarication or hesitation. Quinn feels his heart climb up to his throat as Eliot looks at him, raw emotion shining through his eyes. “Quinn, I didn’t have anything to live for back then. All I had was the job, and I knew it’d get me killed one day real soon, and I was okay with that. I was just…waiting for it to happen.”

It’s like the entire world has fallen silent. All Quinn can hear is his heartbeat and Eliot’s voice.

“And then you were there, sleeping on my couch and stealing my damn coffee. You were there, and I wasn’t alone anymore.” Eliot’s voice is achingly tender as his words reach into Quinn’s chest, stealing his heart away. “You were the only thing that made being alive worth it.”

Quinn doesn’t even know what to say. His chest hurts, like his heart’s been scooped out and then something warm and soft was poured into the empty cavity of his chest.

“So, thank you.” Eliot takes Quinn’s hand. Lifts it to his mouth and kisses the back of it. “For making me stop waiting and start living.” He tugs Quinn closer and kisses the corner of his mouth. Whispers, “For giving me a reason to live.”

There isn’t anything Quinn could say to even remotely express how glad he is that Eliot is still alive, that Eliot is with him today. Later, though, he undresses Eliot reverently and kisses him all over, fucks him slow and gentle as he rocks their hips together carefully so that he doesn’t aggravate the parts of Eliot that are still healing. And when they’re both spent and getting their breath back, laying face to face, Quinn finally says, “You’re the only thing for me, too.”

“Just you and me,” Eliot murmurs, smiling.

-

“What’s that?” Eliot asks as Quinn fiddles with his newest purchase.

“Something called the iPod,” Quinn explains. He plugs the audio jack of the speakers in and presses a button, grinning when the sound of an orchestra playing starts to fill the living room. “It’s an MP3 player.”

“Sounds like a dumb name,” Eliot says, coming over to join Quinn and look at the iPod. He seems a little impressed by it, though.

Quinn laughs and tugs Eliot to the middle of the open space of the living room. “Dance with me, liebling.”

Eliot rolls his eyes, but settles one hand on Quinn’s waist and takes Quinn’s hand in the other. “I’m not doin’ the foxtrot with you.” 

“Still sore that I made you trip on your own feet last time?” Quinn asks, and snickers when Eliot scowls. He settles for a slow dance instead, holding Eliot close as they sway to the soft sound of the music. 

It’s nice, Quinn thinks. The past couple months have been plain and domestic. Completely ordinary. No jobs, no violence, not even any sparring. Eliot’s been going to physical therapy, but even that’s done with. Eliot’s fully healed now, so this means they can return to their usual lives. Quinn’s missed it, of course. He’s an adrenaline junkie, much like Eliot is, and they’ve both been itching to take a job for a while now. Eliot’s going to need some sparring to make sure he’s completely back in the game, but Quinn’s already lined up a couple jobs that Eliot could tag along on if only to be a second set of eyes.

As much as he’s ready to go back to their version of normalcy, though, Quinn thinks he’s going to miss this, just a little. He’s going to miss this slice of domesticity and peace. 

He can still have it in small doses, he thinks as he and Eliot dance to the music, his cheek resting against the side of Eliot’s head, soft hair tickling his skin. They can still have quiet nights by the lake and lazy afternoons with dancing and weekends without any sort of violence or thrill. They can still have those, in the space and comfort of their home. Just once in a while, pretending to be ordinary people.

-

The thing is, Quinn and Eliot can’t be ordinary in the long run, no matter how hard they try.

“Shit,” Quinn swears as he slings his go bag over his shoulder. “Shit, shit, _shit_.”

“We gotta go,” Eliot says, hefting his duffle bag and gripping his phone. “They’re gonna be expecting us at the German border and the airport. We need to take a detour.”

Quinn thinks it over. “Take a boat at Lake Constance, cross over to Austria, then first plane outta there.”

Eliot starts heading for the front door, his expression stormy as he mutters, “Of all the countries to become a wanted fugitive, it had to be Switzerland.”

“We shouldn’t have taken this job.” Quinn follows Eliot, then hesitates for a second, looking around him, at this place that was their home for the past year. A part of him mourns losing this place. A bigger part of him chastises him for ever thinking he could find a place to call a home. “We should’ve known we were being used.”

“Too late for that now,” Eliot hisses. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Quinn takes one last look at the home they’re leaving behind, then follows Eliot out the door. It’s nearly two in the morning and dead silent outside. Tomorrow, the authorities will probably find this place and question the locals about two men who were involved in a bomb explosion in a hotel that killed half a dozen people, including an influential politician. It’s not true at all, but their so-called client has already framed them and tipped off the police, and now it’s a race to get out of the country before they’re put behind bars for something they didn’t actually mean to commit.

They didn’t know the package was a bomb, didn’t know that the dead-drop location was actually where the assassination target was meant to be. They didn’t know a teenager was going to be one of the victims. They didn’t know, but it all happened anyway. This is what the job entails, sometimes. Betrayal. Collateral damage. Going on the run.

Quinn knew that, but fuck, he’d let his guard down. And now he’s leaving behind something he thought he could keep.

But at least he has Eliot. He can lose anything as long as it’s not Eliot.

As if he’s thinking the exact same thing, Eliot looks at Quinn for a long moment, like he’s unbearably glad that even amidst everything, he’ll have Quinn coming with him.

Together, they run into the dark.


	5. Chapter 5

They’re laying low in the Maldives when Quinn turns twenty-three. It’s not a complete coincidence that they’re in one of the most sought-out honeymoon destinations in the world on that day, because they actually came on a job to retrieve something from a couple honeymooning at an exclusive resort there. They’ve managed to retrieve the package—apparently some family heirlooms that the bride had taken without her older sister’s approval—and are finally relaxing in their own resort room when Eliot checks the date.

“Shit, it’s your birthday,” Eliot says.

Quinn pauses from where he’d been aimlessly flipping through the resort’s brochures. He’s not exactly taken aback that he’s turned twenty-three all of a sudden, but he does feel a frisson of frustration that they’ve spent this much time relentlessly on the move, to the point where all the days have started bleeding together. They weren’t quite on the run, but they weren’t settling down anywhere, either, and while that’s the norm for people like them, been the norm for Quinn for many years in his life, he’s a little bothered by it.

He still misses Zürich. Misses that sense of having somewhere to return to.

Not that it matters. His true home is here with him, blue eyes looking somewhat crestfallen as he regards Quinn.

“Don’t give me that look,” Quinn admonishes. He softens the order by stepping into Eliot’s space and kissing the corner of his mouth, both arms sliding round Eliot’s waist to pull him in so that they’re pressed close against each other. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Still, I should’ve thought of it beforehand.” Eliot presses a quick kiss to Quinn’s lips, but pulls away when Quinn tries to chase his mouth for more. “We should do something.”

It’s the late afternoon, right when the golden glow of sunlight is making Quinn feel lazy, and there’s a criminally soft bed three feet away. Quinn presses his hips more firmly against Eliot’s and gives him an expectant look.

Eliot raises an eyebrow. “That all you want?”

Quinn huffs, pressing his forehead against Eliot’s. “Darlin’, we’re in one of the best romantic hotspots anyone could ask for. I’ll be disappointed if you _don’t_ fuck me senseless today.”

“Can’t disappoint you on your birthday,” Eliot says agreeably, and starts walking Quinn backwards towards the bed. There’s a sharp gleam in his eyes now, the one that says he’s got an idea that Quinn’s going to enjoy, and it sends a shiver of anticipation down Quinn’s spine.

When Eliot shoves Quinn down to make him sit on the edge of the bed and gets on his knees, Quinn suspects that Eliot’s about to suck him off and then fuck him while he’s oversensitive and pliant from orgasm. What he _doesn’t_ suspect is Eliot blowing him slow and teasing, right up to the brink where Quinn’s shaking and about to come, and then pulling off with a pop and a mock-innocent grin.

“The hell?” Quinn exhales, his voice cracking a little from how desperate he is.

“We should head out and take a walk,” Eliot says, lips still obscenely spit-slick and precome smudged at the corner of his mouth. “Then we can have a nice dinner for your birthday.”

Quinn’s jaw drops. “Are you fucking serious?” 

Eliot stands up, absentmindedly licking the precome away from corner of his mouth, and Quinn’s dick throbs. “Of course I’m serious. C’mon, sweetheart. Let’s go.”

“What happened to not disappointing me?” Quinn asks, because he’s so close and his whole body aches from the need to come. All he’d need is a hand around his dick, stroking him fast and tight, and it’d be over in five seconds. He’s tempted to jerk himself off right now, to be honest.

But Eliot’s giving him a stern look, stopping him from wrapping a hand around his cock. “No getting off until I say so.” Then he smirks. “I promise that you won’t be disappointed if you do as I say.”

Quinn hesitates, because he really is desperate and delayed gratification sounds incredibly dissatisfying right now, but he eventually gathers every ounce of self-restraint that he has and tucks his aching cock back into his underwear and zips his jeans back up. He’s going to need a moment before it becomes less obvious that he’s hard in his pants. “Fine. This better be good.”

“Trust me,” Eliot says, as if Quinn could ever _not_ trust Eliot, “it’ll be fun.”

-

Once Quinn can stand up without a visible boner, they go outside and walk around, admiring the long stretch of the beach and the deep blue of the ocean waves lapping at the white sand. Then they have a luxurious dinner in a restaurant that serves delicious seafood and a heavenly crème brûlée. It’s a fantastic time, to be honest, but there’s that simmer in Quinn’s blood that won’t quite go away, Just the faintest burn of heat that could easily be stoked into a roaring fire with a single touch.

So when they step out of the restaurant and Eliot leans in to whisper into Quinn’s ear, telling him to go back to the room first and take a nice shower— _no getting off on your own, sweetheart, you hear me?_ —and wait for him, Quinn gets half-hard from that alone.

Eliot’s warm breath against his skin and the implications of those words haunt him all the way back to their room, and it’s an exercise in self-control to not jerk himself off as he scrubs himself down.

Eventually, after what feels like ages of Quinn alone in his bathrobe and pacing the room, jittery and curious, Eliot comes back with a small paper shopping bag in his hand.

“On your back,” Eliot says, setting the bag on the desk and undoing his belt.

Quinn complies, stripping the robe off and climbing onto the bed, hoping like hell that Eliot’s not going to spend the entire night keeping him on the knife’s edge. Eliot loves breaking him down into a begging mess in bed, so Quinn wouldn’t put it past him. “What’s in the bag?”

In the bag is a silk ribbon. Nothing fancy. It’s wide and soft and deep red, and it doesn’t dig into Quinn’s skin much when Eliot ties both of his wrists with it, looping the ribbon around the center of the barred wooden headboard so that Quinn’s arms are stretched above his head. There’s enough wiggle room for Quinn to pull his arms down to bend his elbows halfway, but it’s not enough for Quinn to try touch Eliot.

“Last chance,” Eliot says, brushing a kiss across Quinn’s temple and stealing another one from Quinn’s lips before he sits back on his heels and pops the cap off the lube, “if you wanna ask me to go easy on you.”

“Fuck you,” Quinn says on instinct, which is probably the exact response Eliot expected.

A corner of Eliot’s mouth quirks up, the look on his face fond and sly and smug all at once. “Well, then.” He slides two lube-slick fingers into Quinn without warning, and Quinn chokes on an expletive, instinctively pulling against his restraints. Eliot smiles wider. “You asked for it.”

-

“I can’t,” Quinn gasps, his limbs trembling from the effort it takes to keep himself propped up on his elbows and knees. Eliot had maneuvered Quinn into this position after fucking three orgasms out of him—twice with his cock and once with his fingers—and then he’d slid his cock into where Quinn was already full and wet, fucking Quinn until he came for a fourth time. Now Quinn is shuddering through a fifth orgasm, unrelenting heat licking up his spine while Eliot fucks him slow and hard, fingers digging into Quinn’s hips as he thrusts forward over and over, not giving Quinn a chance to recover. “You fucking— _shit_ —bastard _!_ ”

“You’re doing great, sweetheart.” Eliot’s voice is breathless and shaky, the way it tends to sound when he’s a few good thrusts away from coming. “You take it so good.”

Overstimulated as he is, Quinn manages to get a solid enough grip on his own body coordination to clench down hard, eliciting a cracked-open groan from Eliot as his hips stutter, burying himself deep as he comes for the second time of the night. 

Just when Eliot’s pulling out and Quinn’s thinking it’s finally over, Eliot spreads Quinn’s ass open with his thumbs, and Quinn realizes what’s about to happen. “Eliot, don’t you dare—”

His words are cut off by a low whine erupting from his throat at the sensation of Eliot licking him open, right where he’s messy and leaking Eliot’s come, and Quinn’s buries his face into the crook of one arm as he half-sobs from how oversensitive he is. It’s both too much and not enough, and Quinn’s own body can’t seem to make up its mind as to whether it wants to jerk away from the stimulation or welcome it.

Eliot takes his time eating Quinn out, licking what he can reach of the come that’s leaked out of Quinn down the insides of his thighs and teasing at Quinn’s rim with his tongue until Quinn muffles a litany of swear words into his arm and comes again, untouched.

“You son of a bitch,” Quinn rasps after getting his breath back, feeling the head of Eliot’s cock nudge against his rim once more. 

“Should’ve just asked me to go easy on you,” Eliot says, his smile audible through his voice, and then he pushes inside of Quinn one more time.

Once Quinn’s finally broken down into begging— _no more, Eliot, please, I can’t take more_ —and been pushed into coming for the seventh and final time, Eliot comes once more—this time all over Quinn’s back—and then unties Quinn, allowing him to lay on his side while Eliot fetches a wet towel to wipe them both down.

“So, not disappointed?” Eliot asks as he pulls the covers over them both, laying face to face with Quinn. 

Quinn looks at the red marks left on his wrists. He hadn’t been tied all that tightly, and he could’ve easily untied himself if he’d really wanted to, but the ribbon had still chafed enough to leave its mark on him.

The sight makes satisfaction curl up in his stomach, nice and warm. “Yeah, definitely not disappointed.”

Eliot follows Quinn’s gaze, then takes Quinn’s wrist gently, pressing a kiss to the red mark there. His voice is soft and sincere—as if what he wants to give Quinn is more than sex and a night of fun, as if he wants to give Quinn his entire heart on a silver platter—when he whispers, “Happy birthday.”

-

Ever since they left Switzerland, they’ve been taking riskier jobs. More dangerous ones with higher risk of bloodshed. It’s always been a dangerous game, to be a hitter, but these days, Quinn’s been using more bullets. There’s more blood on Eliot’s clothes than there used to be. They’ve both started seeking out the bigger payouts and the dirtier work. It’s not a hugely noticeable difference from before, but Quinn can’t help but notice the way Eliot’s smile is a little tighter most of the time nowadays. It’s hard to miss the fact that Eliot’s approaching jobs with a grim kind of determination that hadn’t been the norm until the bombing incident.

Maybe it’s because they still haven’t been able to get their hands on the man who used them. Quinn sure as hell hates the fact that they haven’t been able to teach the guy a lesson or ten. He’s been silently plotting several ways to capture the slippery bastard and beat his teeth in. Maybe even kill him. He doesn’t know if that would make Eliot feel better, though. Eliot’s the kind of person who can’t stomach hurting kids, and the fact that they inadvertently killed half a dozen innocent people, including a teenager, must weigh heavily on him.

Quinn, to be honest, usually doesn’t care too much about collateral damage, innocent or not. But he doesn’t like being the reason a fifteen-year-old is dead. 

Maybe they just need some time to work through this, the aftermath of being made into both fools and unintentional murderers. The mourning of losing what they had started settling into. Perhaps they can find their way back to an equilibrium eventually on their own or after dealing with the person who caused it all in the first place. 

The slightly worrying possibility, which Quinn hopes isn’t the case, is that this might be a catalyst. Something that changes them forever. 

Quinn doesn’t mind changing. That’s what he’s done all his life. Adapt, evolve, survive. But he doesn’t want Eliot to change that way. Doesn’t want Eliot’s smiles to lose their warmth or his blue eyes to harden. He doesn’t want Eliot to hate himself any more than he already does. 

If the two of them must change, then it’ll be Quinn who changes more. It’ll be Quinn who aims and pulls the trigger twice as many times to save Eliot from ever having to do it even once. He’s willing to do whatever if takes to keep Eliot alive and safe and happy. If that means dirtying his hands and paying the cost for it, then so be it.

-

They spend three weeks in Lagos, which is the longest time they’ve spent in a single place ever since Switzerland. They’re working a job that requires a pretty messy retrieval, and their best opening for it is a charity fundraiser gala that’s happening later in the month, where the majority of security guards of the casino will be distracted. So they settle down in a crowded apartment in one of the poorer districts of the city, keeping as much of a low profile as they can as they wait and plot and gather intel.

In the meantime, Quinn finds a stray cat lurking in the side alley of their apartment building. It’s a skinny tabby that walks with a limp, as if it injured its left hind leg a long time ago, and regards Quinn with curious eyes. Never hissing or running away, but never quite coming close, either.

Quinn buys cat snacks, just on a whim, and discovers that the cat can be coaxed into sitting beside him, munching hungrily on the snacks he offers. It bats his hand away when he tries to pet it, for the first week or so, but after nearly ten days of wooing the cat with expensive snacks and regular food in a bowl, the cat lets him pet it, albeit with a disgruntled air, like it’s begrudgingly accepted that it likes Quinn enough to let him stroke its fur. 

For a stray cat, its fur is ridiculously soft and nice.

Eliot catches him at it about four days into the wooing process and rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t actually say anything about it until they’re two weeks into their stay in Lagos, when Quinn is petting the cat while he sits on the curb.

“Don’t get too attached,” Eliot says. Quinn knows that Eliot has a soft spot for animals, so he’s aware that this isn’t Eliot being coldhearted or dismissive of Quinn’s attempts to befriend the cat. This is Eliot trying to protect Quinn from any kind of heartbreak. Quinn suspects that Eliot blames himself for being the one to call Zürich a home, to say it aloud and give them that kind of hope, and this is his way of trying to not repeat that mistake.

“I know.” There’s a reason why Quinn doesn’t try to name the cat, even in his own head. “Don’t worry, I’m gonna be fine with leaving it behind.”

The cat will be fine with being left behind, too. It’s been on the streets long enough to know that nothing will stick around forever. That in the end, its always going to be on its own. Quinn lived like that, too. At least, until he met Eliot. 

If Eliot ever left Quinn behind, it would break him.

He doesn’t think his departure would break the cat, though, so he doesn’t worry too much about it. The day they leave the city, Quinn pours all the remaining cat food in a bowl and leaves it outside, then walks away without looking back. It’s easier than he thought it’d be.

The only person he could never walk away from is walking with him. That’s all the attachment that Quinn really needs.

-

Things go to hell when Quinn takes a job that he knows, deep down, would be safer to leave untouched. But there’s a sort of satisfaction in knowing that the job will result in a hell of a payout and retribution for deeply wronged families. It’s not that Quinn wants to be a hero, but he does enjoy targeting someone who deserves it.

Eliot’s the one who’s keeping watch on ground level when he’s recognized by a local drug lord who happens to be present at the opening ceremony for the new city hall of Yangon. It starts up a fuss, much earlier than Quinn was expecting, and he ends up sniping down the new corrupt mayor when their primary exit strategy’s been blocked off, mostly because Eliot’s gotten himself surrounded by police officers.

Eliot could probably take care of them and meet Quinn at the rendezvous point anyway, but it’s too much of a risk to let Eliot out of his sight. So Quinn shoots half the officers down. He aims for non-lethal body parts, because killing police officers is just begging for more complications, and then he starts running.

When Eliot reunites with him, they’re still being chased down.

“They know who I am,” Eliot hisses. “We need to split up before they figure out who you are, too.”

“Fuck that.” Quinn would shake Eliot by the shoulders if they had the time to slow down. Eliot is an idiot if he thinks that Quinn wouldn’t give up his secrecy for the sake of staying with him. Quinn means to keep Eliot at all costs. “We’re getting out of here together.”

Eliot growls in frustration, but he doesn’t try to change Quinn’s mind. “We probably can’t ever come back here again.”

“Lots of places we can’t really go back to,” Quinn ducks into an alley that they’d marked down earlier as a good emergency escape route. “No safe place in the world for us.”

“It’s us against the goddamn world,” Eliot says in a grim tone, following Quinn through the alley.

Quinn shrugs and then hoists himself over the brick wall that blocks their path, reaching down to grab Eliot and pull him up. They’ll be able to lose most of their pursuers this way. “At least there’s two of us.”

Eliot’s hand is warm in his, gripping tight as Quinn pulls him up so that they can jump down into the dirty alley that leads out into a crowded street, where they can grab a cab and hightail it out of the country. For a moment, Eliot holds on before he huffs and lets go of Quinn’s hand. “Yeah, at least there’s that.”

“The world better watch out,” Quinn jokes, and just for a moment, when Eliot grins at him, vicious and mischievous in a way Quinn hasn’t seen in a while, he can believe that the two of them could take on the whole world.

-

Anyway, that’s how both of them get prices on their heads in Myanmar.

Eliot’s bounty is higher, for some reason, despite the fact that Quinn’s the one who assassinated the mayor. He’s a little offended by that.

“This isn’t a competition,” Eliot says, lips twitching as he barely represses a laugh.

It shouldn’t be. Quinn’s aware of that. But it still feels like one.

“You’re ridiculous.” Fond exasperation seeps into Eliot’s voice, clearly about to tell Quinn off for his misguided competitiveness, so Quinn preemptively shuts him up with a kiss.

-

They’re on a job in Barcelona when everything goes sideways. Not just in a _we got busted_ way or _we failed to retrieve the package_ way or even _we’re wanted men in another damn country_ way. Things go sideways to the point where they practically crawl their way back to the rickety hotel they’ve been staying in for the past two days, sneaking their way in through a side entrance, Eliot half-hauling Quinn through the door of their room because Quinn’s most definitely fractured his ankle and can’t walk straight. It’s a chore for Eliot too, because he’s bleeding from a stab wound to the side, and he’s still recovering from slotting a dislocated shoulder back into its socket. 

That’s not even counting the other numerous injuries the both of them have sustained over the course of the night. Quinn’s been shot in the shoulder, has two different knife wounds that came perilously close to gutting him open, and nasty bruising around his neck from where a guy tried to strangle him with a belt. Plus, he has a concussion, too. Eliot’s a mess of nicks and bruises as well, the most noticeable injury being his broken, bleeding nose. They’re a mess.

Funny thing is, they’re still in better shape than the ones who dealt this damage. Fourteen guys are probably going to be eating through straws for a few weeks. Quinn killed four others, mostly out of self-defense. Eliot killed one, mostly because there was an idiot with a live grenade, and Eliot’s only option had been to throw the guy onto the grenade to prevent the blast from hitting himself and Quinn.

Eliot doesn’t seem very sorry about it, and Quinn figures that it’s a good thing. He doesn’t need Eliot going all moral and moody when they’re both in very real danger of bleeding out.

“What the fuck is an antique dealer doing with organized crime?” Quinn grumbles, then hisses as Eliot finishes stitching up his shoulder and starts on the shallow gash running vertically down the side of Quinn’s stomach. He’s still pissed off that they’d been caught off-guard by the heavy unofficial security they’d encountered when they went to retrieve the package today. Even the fact that they successfully retrieved the package doesn’t quite soothe him, because the package is an entirely unimpressive wooden carving that’s the size of his fist. He can hardly believe they went through all this trouble for that thing.

“Could be using the antiques to fund criminal activities.” Eliot finishes the job and wipes the needle clean to sterilize it before he hands it over to Quinn. “We’ve seen it before. Mobsters do it. So do terrorists.”

Quinn threads the needle and starts working on Eliot’s stab wound. “They didn’t speak Catalan, which means they’re probably not local. So, not mobsters. Didn’t feel like terrorists, either.”

“Could be a cartel operating across borders,” Eliot says, taking a moment to breathe through the sting of the needle before he adds, “or an arms dealer.”

None of those possibilities are good. “We need to get out of here.”

“America?” Eliot suggests.

“We’re gonna be too noticeable if we get on a commercial flight,” Quinn says, gesturing at Eliot’s broken nose and his own bruised face. “And if whoever we stole from today has a good network, borrowing a private jet is going to be conspicuous, too.”

Eliot goes quiet, deep in thought as Quinn finishes stitching him up. It’s only after Eliot’s started splinting Quinn’s ankle as best as he can that he asks, “London?”

It’s been nearly four years since they were in London. Quinn can’t tell if it’s too early to go back or not. But they’ve been through nearly every safehouse they have between the two of them in the past three years, and they’ve been on the run for over five months now. Quinn can’t help the sharp pang of wanting to go back somewhere familiar. 

Even though it might be safer not to go, Quinn nods because he’s sometimes a little too driven by the emotions that overtake his rationality from time to time, and right now, he misses the first place he ever started to feel safe with somebody. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go to London.”

-

First, they drop off the package at the designated dead drop location. 

Next, they steal a car and drive up north, passing through the border into France, then ditch the car and steal a truck. They take turns driving, two hours each, and then leave the truck at the outskirts of Paris and take a train to Saint Quentin, Quinn wrapping a scarf around his neck to hide the bruising while Eliot keeps the brim of his baseball cap lowered to hide his face as much as possible. From there, they steal another car and drive all the way to Calais, where they drive the car into a long-term parking lot where it won’t be found for a while. After that, they sneak onto a ferry to Dover. 

In Dover, Quinn pretends to be a backpacker who needs a quick ride and is willing to pay for it. Soon enough, he finds a guy willing to drive him to the greater London area. While Quinn keeps the mark distracted, Eliot stows himself away in the trunk of the guy’s car.

Once they hit London, it’s easy to blend into the late morning crowd, the last wave of commuters heading to work. They both deliberately play the role of hungover men who got in a pub brawl, and anybody curiously observing them soon dismisses their injuries and returns to minding their own business. 

By the time they’re stumbling into the safehouse in Battersea, Quinn is exhausted from all the paranoia and tension coiled tight inside him. He only relaxes when the door locks behind them and Eliot’s taking his hand, pulling Quinn towards the bedroom without a word.

Quinn’s never really been in the bedroom of this flat before, but it feels natural as breathing to follow Eliot inside and crawl into bed with him, not even bothering to change out of his sweatshirt and jeans, their go bags dropped carelessly on the floor as they curl up against each other under the covers. Eliot buries his face into the hollow of Quinn’s throat, pressing his mouth to where Quinn’s neck is dark with bruises before cautiously tucking his head under Quinn’s chin as to not jostle his nose. Quinn presses a kiss to Eliot’s hair and breathes slowly, curling a careful arm around Eliot so that he isn’t pressing against the stab wound. Eliot’s arms tighten around his waist in response, and that makes the last of the tension melt out of Quinn’s system.

There’s no safe place in the world for them, but just in this moment, in this flat that’s achingly familiar and with Eliot pressed close against him, Quinn feels safe enough to close his eyes and sleep.

-

They lay low for a few weeks, just long enough for them to both recover from their injuries. They keep an eye out for anyone who might hunt them down for Barcelona, but nobody comes, and enough time passes by for Quinn to start walking without crutches or a cast, even if he’s still limping a little. It’s the most peaceful time they’ve had in months.

Once they’ve settled in and healed up for the most part, they start reaching out to contacts, looking for information about their traitorous ex-client (still safe in Switzerland), intel on whoever was behind the Barcelona incident (no leads at all), and potential jobs (preferably less risky ones until Quinn stops limping).

The first job they take is pretty damn risky.

It’s a K&R. A Justice of the High Court’s seven-year-old daughter was kidnapped to pressure him into letting the ringleader of a money laundering scheme walk free. There’s less than day until the judge is making a ruling, and there’s no guarantee that his daughter will come back safely once he’s given in to the kidnappers’ demands, so he urgently hires Quinn and Eliot through a fixer.

A kid’s life is at stake. It doesn’t get much riskier than that.

“You ever failed one of these before?” Quinn asks after they’ve figured out where the kid is being kept. There’s only an hour left until the trial starts, and he’s feeling the clock ticking down more keenly than ever. It’s not his first rodeo, but he’s only taken this kind of job a handful of times. He’s been lucky enough to have a hundred percent success rate on that front so far, but there’s always a first time.

Eliot hesitates. “Once.” There’s just a hint of regret in his eyes, too subtle to catch unless you know Eliot Spencer as well as you know your own heartbeat. “Got hired by a guy to get his younger brother back. Turns out that the brother was already dead before I even took the job.”

“That doesn’t count.” Quinn’s voice isn’t gentle, but it’s quiet and sincere all the same. “That’s not on you.”

“If we don’t get her back,” Eliot says, looking over his shoulder at the building the kid is being held, “it’s gonna be on us.”

Quinn loads his gun. They can’t fail this. For the kid’s sake. For the judge’s sake. And most of all, for Eliot’s sake, because Eliot won’t ever forgive himself if they don’t save this kid. “No time to be pessimistic. Just focus on bringing our girl home.” He clicks the safety off. “Head in the game, Spencer.”

“You’re the one who started this conversation,” Eliot grumbles, but just as Quinn intended, he sounds like his usual, professional self. “Fine, let’s go.”

-

“Mia,” the judge says, sounding grateful and relieved as she rushes into his arms, his eyes wet as he laughs and hugs her tight. He looks up from where he’s kneeling to hold his daughter to meet Quinn’s eyes, then Eliot’s. “Thank you.”

Quinn doesn’t know what to do with such sincere and heartfelt gratitude, but Eliot saves him from any awkwardness by nodding and saying, “None of ‘em will be bothering you again.”

“Police got an anonymous tip-off,” Quinn adds with relish. “They’re gonna find the whole lot of them tied up next to all their cash and transaction records soon enough. Should be enough to put everyone behind bars for a nice long time along with their leader.” 

The judge smiles and thanks them one more time, and Quinn glances at Eliot to see the warm, genuine smile on his mouth. Something loosens in his chest at the sight, and Quinn feels his mouth curve a little upwards, too.

This doesn’t undo what they’ve already done. Saving this girl doesn’t take away the blood on their hands, but it’s proof that they can still do good. That they can be more than people who steal and hit and break. And for all that Quinn has never cared about being a better person, he’s glad they took this job.

When Mia waves goodbye at them, Quinn thinks that he wouldn’t mind changing for the better.

-

They go on a couple more jobs, easy ones that aren’t much of a challenge, and on one stint for the Dutch government that’s tedious as hell. There aren’t any particularly exciting or well-paying job offers for a while, and Quinn’s about to suggest that they go rob the Tate Modern out of sheer boredom when a contact calls to say that she has somebody specifically requesting them for a job with a handsome payout.

The job sounds decently fun, too. There’s a valuable art piece being transported from Kensington to Heathrow Airport in a couple days, and the client thinks Eliot and Quinn are perfect for the job. Probably because the art piece in question is a marble statue that’s nearly the size of Quinn. Stealing that from a heavily guarded vehicle and moving it all the way to the shipping container where the client will be waiting is going to be a pain in the ass, even with two of them.

It’ll be the most fun they’ve had in weeks.

“More people requesting us by name these days,” Eliot remarks.

Quinn shrugs. Eliot’s had a bit of a reputation even from before he met Quinn—even if Quinn didn’t know that back then—and Quinn’s gained one by proxy, too. They’re not by any means notorious, but they’re certainly garnering more attention lately. While Quinn prefers to be anonymous, he’s accepted that becoming a recognizable name in the criminal community is the price he must pay as Eliot’s partner in crime. “Well, we did cause a lot of trouble.”

“Some people might be looking to get us in more trouble,” Eliot says, and it’s obvious that he’s thinking about the bombing again. Their new client looks clean: successful accountant, late-thirties, married to a university professor. But then again, they’d done their homework in Zürich, too.

“Occupational hazard, darlin’.” Quinn flops down sideways from where he was sitting on the couch so that his head is on Eliot’s lap. “We can say no, if it bothers you.”

Eliot blinks slowly, like he’s considering it, fingers threading through Quinn’s curls. Eventually, he sighs and shakes his head. “No, we’ll do it.”

Quinn grins up at him. “And if anybody tries to get us in trouble, we’ll bring the trouble to them.”

That makes Eliot huff a laugh, and Quinn’s whole body warms at the sight of Eliot’s mouth curving upwards, the corners of his eyes crinkling. He never gets tired of being the reason why Eliot smiles. 

“Sounds like a plan,” Eliot murmurs, and leans down to kiss him.

-

When they bring the statue to the shipping container, their client looks pleasantly surprised.

“I’m impressed,” Andrew Freeman says as he circles around the pristine statue with admiration in his eyes. “I expected more damage.” He looks at Eliot and Quinn, who don’t even have a scratch one them. “On all of you.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Quinn says dryly. 

Freeman shakes his head. “I guess you two might be the right fit after all.”

Eliot’s eyes go sharp at that. “Right fit for what?” He frowns. “Was this some kind of test?”

Quinn very carefully refrains from reaching for his concealed holster under his jacket. He watches the way Freeman smiles and reads no malicious intent there. Only sheer professionalism, which Quinn has to respect. 

“I’m here on behalf of my client,” Freeman says. “He’s interested in hiring you on a permanent basis.”

This isn’t the first time they’ve gotten this kind of offer. Quinn relaxes a little. If that’s all what this is about, then the answer is simple. “We don’t do that kind of thing,” 

“At the very least, we’d appreciate it if you came and met him to hear the offer directly.” Freeman reaches a hand into his suit jacket, and Quinn instinctively pulls out his Beretta and aims it, clicking the safety off. Freeman doesn’t even flinch. “Ah, apologies for startling you. I simply want to offer you an incentive. It’s harmless.”

It sound true enough. Given the tailoring of Freeman’s suit, it seems unlikely that he’s armed. 

Quinn doesn’t lower the gun, but he does click the safety back on.

“Excellent.” Freeman slips his hand into his jacket, and then pulls out a small piece of paper. It’s a photograph, Quinn realizes, just as Freeman flips it so that Quinn and Eliot can see the picture.

It’s Keller. The man who tricked them into delivering the bomb back in Zürich. He’s obviously tied to a chair, his mouth duct-taped shut, and his eyes are full of fear.

Eliot inhales sharply from beside Quinn, shifting on his feet in a tell that gives away just how surprised he is.

“Meet my client, and then this man,” Freeman says, “is all yours.”

Quinn shares a look with Eliot, and that’s all it takes to reach a decision. Quinn lowers the gun just as Eliot says, “Lead the way.”

-

Freeman drives them to a luxury hotel, taking them straight to the executive suite—not the presidential one, Quinn inwardly notes—and when they entire, Quinn counts eight men standing around the room, all armed, at least three of them former military. One of them seems like former Mossad, but he’s not entirely sure. 

Then a man walks in from the adjoining bedroom, dressed in an immaculate suit and a sharp smile on his face. He comes to a stop in front of them both, spreading his hands in a welcoming gesture. “You must be Eliot Spencer and Quinn. It’s a pleasure to meet you both. I’m rather a fan of your work.” He grins like a shark. “You made quite an impression when you stole something of mine.”

Quinn inwardly tenses up, but he deliberately keeps the line of his shoulders relaxed, exuding as much of a casual air as he can. “We’ve stolen a lot of things from a lot of people.”

“I’m quite aware,” the man says in an amicable tone. “Still, it was impressive, what you did to my men in Barcelona.”

Shit. _Shit_.

Quinn feels panic rising in his throat, but before he can think of anything to say, the man waves a hand. “I’m not here to avenge them. What happened to them was the cost of doing business. I’d much rather have two capable men than sixteen useless idiots.”

“We haven’t said anything about working for you,” Eliot says, and he sounds much calmer than Quinn feels. “We don’t even know who you are.”

“Ah, my apologies.” The man extends a hand to Eliot with a smile that’s unexpectedly charming. “Damien Moreau.”

Quinn’s heard that name before, since a few years ago. Up and coming arms dealer. Quickly making a name for himself as a rapidly growing force in Europe. Not quite at the top of the food chain yet, but getting closer with each year.

“What does an arms dealer want us for?” Eliot asks, sounding wary as he shakes Moreau’s hand. 

“To retrieve things for me.” Moreau offers his hand to Quinn, who shakes it on autopilot. He’s still mentally cataloguing all the threats in the room and possible escape routes. There’s no way this man will just let them walk away if they refuse him. “And occasionally terrorize others who get in my way. It won’t be much different from what you’re already doing.”

Quinn carefully gauges the men around them. He’s fairly sure he and Eliot stand a chance at escaping, but it wouldn’t be easy. These men are dangerous. “Pretty sure you have enough talent right here to do just that.”

“There’s always more room for men of your caliber.” Moreau walks over to sit in the armchair at the centre of the room, then gestures for Quinn and Eliot to take a seat on the couch facing him, which they do. “I promise that you’ll be compensated generously for doing what you’ve always done. All you have to do is take work only from me.”

“So you want us to steal things,” Eliot says.

“Mostly antiques. Art. Paperwork, too, on the rare occasion I can’t acquire information through my network.” Moreau leans back in his seat. “I won’t lie. Some of the jobs I give you will be quite challenging. But I’d never send you to certain death. That would be such a waste.”

It sounds exactly like the kind of work the two of them have always done. But Quinn knows, deep down, that there’s a catch. There always is. “You want us to do your dirty work, too?”

To his credit, Moreau doesn’t seem put off by the question. “Well, not all the work will be clean, but I have other men for the more, hmm, _unpleasant_ matters.”

It’s a tempting offer. If all the jobs Moreau wants them to do are like the one they pulled off tonight, Quinn sees no harm in saying yes. And working for Moreau means that Quinn and Eliot will be part of something bigger. Something that guarantees a degree of protection that they don’t have when there’s just the two of them against the world. 

Quinn glances at Eliot, who’s wearing an unreadable expression as he asks “You gonna let us walk out of here if we say no?”

Moreau raises an eyebrow. “Well, of course. I’d rather hope that you change your minds and come willingly, rather than getting rid of you and that potential entirely.” He pauses. “Though I would appreciate that you don’t get in the way of my operations again.”

Eliot looks at Quinn, blue eyes flicking down to the left towards the door, and Quinn expresses his agreement with a quick lick of his lips. Together, they turn to Moreau.

“We can’t promise anything,” Eliot says.

“But we’ll think about it,” Quinn adds.

Moreau chuckles. He motions at Freeman, who offers them a business card. “Well, you’re always welcome in San Lorenzo.”

As they all stand up, one of the men in the room, standing second closest to Moreau, clears his throat. “Sir, about our guest.”

“Oh, right. Bring him in.” As two men disappear into one of the other adjoining rooms, Moreau tllts his head and offers a charming smile, with just a hint of teeth. “Consider this a gesture of goodwill.”

Keller is dragged out, wrists bound and duct tape over his mouth, deposited at Quinn and Eliot’s feet. Quinn feels a vicious delight spark in his chest at the sight. The soft huff he hears from Eliot reeks of satisfaction, and Quinn mentally notes that Moreau sure knows how to bribe others.

“It was nice meeting you,” Eliot says to Moreau, and his voice is just a touch warmer than earlier.

Quinn hauls Keller up into a standing position, and smiles at Moreau for the first time. “We’ll definitely think about it.”

And just like that, Moreau lets them go.

-

Eliot makes sure that Keller is going to need some extensive dental work in the near future. Which is still letting Keller off easy. Quinn, on the other hand, makes sure that Keller is going to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. It’s not even close to making up for what Keller’s done, but it’s still a little satisfying.

They leave him as a trembling, whimpering mess at a border checkpoint between Germany and Switzerland. Two days later, they hear the news that he confessed to planning the bombing.

It’s the closest thing they get to closure.

-

A month passes by. They take on a number of jobs. Easy ones, hard ones. It’s comfortable, being in Battersea, not having to scope out the next city, the next place to hide away for a couple weeks. They know it can’t be permanent, though, so they discuss their options. Eliot thinks Los Angeles might be nice. Quinn prefers Rome. They still haven’t quite reached an agreement yet when they take a job in Amsterdam and it turns out that their client fucking sold them out.

This time, they make sure to teach the client a lesson before they sneak their way back into the UK. 

“So, where do we go now?” Quinn asks, tired and frustrated as he packs. He’s so sick of going on the run. “We could head to Montreal. I have a contact who owes me a favor there.”

Eliot rubs a hand over his face, clearly exhausted. “It’s too close to New York. The Romanians are probably still looking for us there.”

“Fuck.” Quinn groans, then zips his bag shut. “Just head to Heathrow and get on whatever’s the first flight out of Europe?”

With a sigh, Eliot shrugs. “Sure, might as well.”

They take a cab to Heathrow and stand in front of the departure schedule as it rolls through outgoing flights. Quinn’s mentally crossing off all the places they’ve been to in the past year when Eliot says, “San Lorenzo doesn’t have any extradition treaties.”

“Huh?” Quinn follows Eliot’s gaze and sees a flight departing for San Lorenzo in two and a half hours. “That place is tiny, though.” He pauses. “That’s where Moreau is.”

“We could try it out,” Eliot says. He looks at Quinn, his brow furrowed in uncertainty, and Quinn realizes that Eliot genuinely doesn’t know what decision to make. He’s asking Quinn to choose for both of them.

Quinn thinks about it. This just might be a deal with the devil, but Moreau’s already let them go once. He might let them walk away again if things don’t work out. And Quinn is so damn tired of running. He wants to stop seeing the look of resignation on Eliot’s face every time they move cities, looking over their shoulders wherever they go. He wants a place that can welcome him, a place where he and Eliot can _stay_.

So he says, “Yeah, it’s worth a shot.”

-

(He doesn’t realize, not then, not that day, that this decision will change their lives forever.)

-

Moreau welcomes them with a warm smile and open arms, clearly very pleased that he was right to bet on them deciding to work for him. 

“I didn’t mean to presume,” Moreau says when he takes them to an elegantly decorated bedroom in his sprawling estate, “but I thought you might prefer to share a room.”

There’s a king-sized bed and an ensuite bathroom. It’s obvious that Moreau’s figured out that they’re partners in more ways then one. And it seems like he doesn’t mind that fact at all. Quinn feels a sense of relief as he steps into the room. “Yeah, you presumed right.”

“It’s a nice place,” Eliot comments. Quinn can tell that he means the acceptance about their relationship and not just the decorations of the room. “Thank you, Moreau.”

“Call me Damien,” Moreau says. “All my best men are as good as family.”

Quinn wonders what that makes the men who aren’t Moreau’s—Damien’s best, but he decides it’s none of his business. It’s flattering to know that Damien thinks the both of them are worth that much. 

“Make yourselves at home,” Damien says.

Nothing can be Quinn’s home except for Eliot, but he appreciates the sentiment. It’s good to be welcomed for once.

-

Eliot and Quinn settle in quickly and easily. There’s clearly a hierarchy of those who work for Moreau. There’s the ones at the bottom rung of the ladder, the errand boys and the rather less talented muscle. Then there’s the more skilled and smarter ones that are given moderate responsibilities and command over the underlings, overseeing smaller operations across all sorts of regions and doing most of Moreau’s bidding. The majority of those tend to be trained men, mostly former military. The men that Quinn and Eliot dealt with in Barcelona were largely from these two groups. Then there’s the third tier, which are the ones who are good at their jobs and in charge of the bigger, more important operations. They’re not always necessarily good at physical fighting, but they’re good at managing and generally command respect from the majority of the organization.

Then there’s Damien’s so-called best men. His favorites. There’s only a dozen of them, including Eliot and Quinn, and they’re all dangerous and deadly. The only exception is Freeman, who is Damien’s financial advisor and accountant, who can’t even load a gun. He’s competent as hell, though, and never an inch less than purely professional.

The other favorites don’t seem to mind Eliot and Quinn’s abruptly added presence. Except for Javier Alonso, who’s Damien’s right hand man. Quinn can easily tell that Alonso dislikes them both, and Quinn takes care to always respond to him with a cheerful smile, which serves to piss off the man even more. Eliot, on the other hand, always gets on Alonso’s nerves by being relentlessly professional with him in a way he isn’t with anybody else, including Damien himself. Quinn finds it so hilarious and satisfying that he rewards Eliot for it by fucking him into the mattress.

The only person working for Damien that Quinn is truly, deeply wary of is Hal Striker, Damien’s chief enforcer. He’s easygoing enough and prone to raucous, barking laughter, but there’s a sense of hungry bloodlust that overflows out of him. Like a predator that doesn’t know how to retract its claws, always looking for prey to shred apart.

“Good to know I’m not the only American here anymore,” Striker comments, throwing himself into the seat across from Quinn and Eliot as they sit in the lounge. “None of the Europeans here know the joy of bagels.”

“Aren’t there Americans that work the easier jobs?” Quinn points out.

Striker rolls his eyes and snorts. His pale gray eyes and closely buzzed brown hair emphasize his sharp cheekbones and strong jaw, making him look harsh. Almost savage. “Those don’t count. They’re expendable.”

Quinn mentally notes that Striker is definitely a psychopath.

“You from Brooklyn?” Eliot asks, clearly ignoring Striker’s comment on human lives being expendable. 

“Is it that obvious?” Striker responds with a heavy Brooklyn drawl, then bares his teeth in a wide grin. “Gotta hand it to you, nobody here can fucking tell.”

Quinn wonders how the hell a psychopath from Brooklyn ended up here. Striker doesn’t seem like former military. Private security seems more likely. Probably mercenary work. “We lived in Brooklyn a couple years ago.”

“Best place to live on the East coast,” Striker says with pride. “The other boroughs can suck my dick.”

“How did Damien find you?” Eliot’s clearly been puzzling over the same thing Quinn has. “You worked private security, didn’t you?”

Striker shrugs. Even that gesture comes off as vaguely threatening. “Worked for Castleman back in the day. Damien found me the same way he found you. His guys tried to get in my way. I took care of ‘em and then Damien came to offer me a job.”

“We have a lot in common,” Quinn deadpans. He’s pretty sure Striker’s definition of taking care of Damien’s men isn’t quite the same as his and Eliot’s. 

Striker throws his head back and laughs. “We sure do.” His grin is menacing behind its mask of cheeriness. “Welcome aboard, fellas.”

-

Quinn is in the kitchen, grabbing coffee while Eliot’s watching a game of football in their room, when he hears the sound of a thud and a rush of vehement swearing in Russian. He turns to find Nikolai Rebane, one of Damien’s other favorites, hissing and hunched over, clearly having knocked his shin against one of the bars of a stool. 

“ты в порядке?” Quinn asks, amused, and Rebane looks up at him with a palpable air of delight.

Turns out that Rebane—“Call me Nikolai”—is from Estonia. His mother hails from San Lorenzo, but Quinn never would’ve guessed that. Nikolai must take after his father, because he’s very pale, with bright blonde hair and blue eyes that are a few shades darker than Eliot’s. Not to mention that he’s very obviously cheered by the fact that Quinn speaks Russian, which none of the other favorites or Damien can speak.

“How did you end up here?” Quinn asks, because Nikolai is genuinely friendly in a way that Striker fails to be, and he can’t quite imagine Damien recruiting him for the same thing Striker did.

“I grew up on the streets,” Nikolai says easily. “Learned a few tricks here and there. Got good at stealing and hitting people so that they can’t hit me. Freelanced for a while, mostly security work and stealing things, and then I decided to come to San Lorenzo, to see where my mother grew up. I did a few jobs for Damien a couple years ago, and then he wanted me to work for him full-time.” He shrugs. “Not as cool of a story as how you came here.”

“So why bring us in when he has you?” Quinn asks. “You can retrieve things, too.”

Nikolai laughs, shaking his head. “I’m not quite as good at fighting as you.”

Quinn is willing to bet that Nikolai is much deadlier than he looks, but if he wants to be underestimated, that’s a strategic choice that Quinn can respect. “So, what’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever stolen?”

“Oh, there was this one time in Athens,” Nikolai says, eyes twinkling with good humor, and Quinn feels a genuine smile curl across his mouth.

-

The jobs that Damien sends them on are fun. Just the right amount of risk and challenge, and never too boring. In return for their successes, he provides Quinn and Eliot with whatever they want, even encouraging them both to expand their horizons and embrace new luxuries.

Naturally, this leads to Damien sending them to his tailor to get bespoke suits, tailored smartly and with just enough room to hide a weapon or three under the layers. While Eliot and Quinn have both worn their fair share of suits in their career, they’ve never had something entirely bespoke, made from scratch based off their exact measurements. Quinn can’t help but find himself a little curious as to how it will look on him. On Eliot.

Five days later, when they both try the finished suits on, Eliot’s gaze goes dark and hungry as he looks Quinn over. In return, Quinn feels his dick twitch at the way the charcoal suit frames Eliot’s shoulders and the way the clean lines of the jacket does the opposite of obscuring the broad stretch of his chest. For once, Quinn wholly appreciates what Damien meant by enjoying the finer things in life.

He shows that appreciation once they’re back in their bedroom, pulling Eliot’s pants and underwear down to his knees and bending him over the desk. Quinn doesn’t bother to undress; he simply unzips himself, pulls his cock out, and fucks Eliot like that.

“Jesus,” Eliot gasps when he gets his breath back, legs shaking as Quinn pulls out. Quinn tucks his own cock back into his underwear before he drops to his knees, so that he gets a good view of Eliot’s hole, leaking Quinn’s come. He admires the view, just for a moment, then leans in to lick Eliot clean. “Fucking hell, _Quinn_ —”

They end up getting the suits dry cleaned.

Eliot, unfortunately, doesn’t quite enjoy wearing one, and sticks to his usual apparel unless a suit is necessary for the occasion. Quinn, on the other hand, takes a liking to his suit. Not just because he looks fantastic in it—dark navy against midnight blue, his favorite colors—but also because he likes the way Eliot looks at him and how it makes him feel. A lot more professional and a little bit more confident. Quinn’s never been lacking in the shameless confidence department, but the suit feels like that perfect finishing touch. The last bit of polish, Damien remarks.

So Quinn gets himself a few more suits. Starts wearing them regularly, not just for work, and he lets Eliot strip them off of him every night. 

Quinn doesn’t doubt that this is a change for the better. He’s sure, down to his bones, that this is just one of the many ways San Lorenzo will change him.

He hopes all those changes are as good as this one.

-

“You’ve got a hell of an ass,” Ramos, one of Damien’s other’s favorites, says from across the lounge. “Why don’t you spread it for me instead of Spencer for a change?”

Quinn raises an eyebrow and lowers his mug of coffee. He’s not an idiot; he’s aware that some people have been eyeing him like candy to be stolen from the jar ever since he’s started wearing suits regularly. Even without the suits, though, Quinn knows he’s been attracting some unwanted attention. He’s the youngest favorite, after all, and notably younger than most of the men on the upper rungs of the ladder in Damien’s organization. 

Nobody’s ever been so openly crass about it though. There’s been some leering and ogling, but nothing as blatant as what Ramos has said, and Quinn is torn between feeling insulted by the words and amused by the sheer audacity. 

There’s a handful of other men in the lounge, and they all go quiet, clearly interested in how things are going to pan out. 

A sharp retort is on the tip of Quinn’s tongue when Eliot walks in through the door, and Quinn knows that Eliot must’ve heard what Ramos said, because he has that calm look on his face that means he’s feeling particularly violent. 

“Quinn,” Eliot says in a flat tone. His eyes are focused on Ramos, who looks defiant and unrepentant even in the face of Eliot’s tranquil fury. “You wanna do the honors?”

As much as Quinn doesn’t need Eliot to fight his battles for him, he thinks that this might be a good example to set for everybody else. A warning that disrespecting either one of them is an insult to the both of them. 

Besides, Quinn really wants to finish his coffee. “He’s all yours.”

“You think you’re untouchable, but you’re not,” Ramos hisses, rising from his seat and ready to throw a punch as Eliot advances. Ramos is ex-military, with a decade of service under his belt and extensive martial arts training. He’s dangerous, and Damien picked him for a reason.

But Damien picked Eliot and Quinn for a reason, too.

Half a dozen men witness Eliot breaking at least fourteen different bones in Ramos’s body, not counting the two teeth he knocked out. Damien, who later hears about the incident, shrugs and says, “He shouldn’t have picked a fight with somebody he couldn’t beat.”

Meanwhile, Striker laughs and nods at Eliot, then Quinn, expressing his approval. “You both are nuts. It’s fucking fantastic!”

Hearing that from Striker of all people is very concerning, but all the same, Quinn feels a little smug. Everybody should get the message: _cross one of us, and you cross us both_.

After that day, nobody in the organization so much as leers at Quinn ever again.

-

Slowly but surely, people from all corners of the criminal underground start learning Quinn and Eliot’s names. With every job they pull off on Damien’s orders, more attention is paid to them. Now, though, neither of them have to go on the run in search of relative anonymity. There’s no need for them to hide anymore.

Then one day, they’re sent on a job that everybody hears about. A job that makes them gain a reputation as Damien Moreau’s best retrieval specialists.

“That’s the most fun I had all year,” Quinn remarks idly. He’s banged up a little, here and there, but nothing serious. He did run out of bullets halfway through the job, though, so he had to get creative. On his suit jacket, there’s a splatter of blood that that doesn’t belong to him.

“I dunno, I still think the job we did in Belgrade last month was better.” Eliot has bruised ribs, judging by the careful way he’s holding himself, but he looks otherwise uninjured. It’s not a bad outcome, given that they’ve had to deal with a modest number of well-trained security guards in a government facility. It’s a miracle that they actually pulled this off without killing any of the fifty-six men that stood between them and the package: a set of vials full of uranium. 

Quinn pokes at a vial, unable to help himself, and Eliot smacks his hand away. “Good thing the job was fun, because this is a huge letdown. Seriously, we came all the way to fucking Pakistan to steal these from corrupt government officials who were gonna sell this to a rival arms dealer. And we don’t even get to take these back with us.”

“We’re returning these to the proper authorities,” Eliot reminds him, “so that they’ll owe us a favor, remember?”

“Damien sure loves having governments in his debt.” Quinn thinks it’s only a matter of time before Damien owns an entire government or two. “I think he just likes the power play more than he likes actually collecting favors.”

Eliot snorts, rollings his eyes, the corner of his mouth quirking up. He’s warmed up to Damien enough to smile at his megalomanic tendencies. “He likes both.”

Eliot tucks the vials back into their case and starts walking out, stepping over unconscious men as he makes his way towards the entrance, and Quinn walks in tandem with him. As they exit the building, Quinn realizes that there’s no going back from this. Now, people will know who they are. _Everybody_ will know. They made it clear who they were. Who sent them. 

And once you’re known in this community, you can never go back to the days you were a secret.

“People are gonna talk about this,” Quinn says as they get back into the car they hid far down the road. “They’re gonna talk about us.”

Eliot pauses, his hand ready to turn on the ignition. “That bother you?”

Quinn thinks about it. It would’ve bothered him, years ago. Even months ago. Now, having a reputation is like wearing a suit: it’s something he’s getting used to very well. He thinks it might be a good change, but he’s not completely sure. “No, I don’t think so. You?”

“Maybe a little.” Eliot half-shrugs with one shoulder. “Don’t care, though. People can talk all they want. We don’t need to run now.”

“Yeah, we don’t.” Quinn stretches his arms over his head and sighs. “C’mon, let’s finish this and go back to San Lorenzo. My new suit should be ready to pick up, now.”

Eliot chuckles, turning the ignition and revving the engine. “You and your suits.”

“You like me in my suits,” Quinn purrs, and thinks about just what he and Eliot could get up to with that new suit. It’s nice, he thinks as he leans back into this seat, counting the minutes til they go back to somewhere they can return to. Somewhere they can stay. It’s like having an anchor in a stormy sea.

It’s the closest thing to safety they could ever have.


	6. Chapter 6

Quinn and Eliot spend most of Quinn’s twenty-fourth birthday working a job in Sarajevo, retrieving an intricate jade carving of a green dragon baring its fangs as it curves around a mountain. It’s a messy deal, as it tends to be when well-armed gangsters are competing with you to get their hands on the package, but the two of them pull it off easily, although not quite flawlessly. Eliot gets grazed by a bullet, right across the outer forearm, and Quinn’s suit gets singed from an encounter with a molotov cocktail. He’s a little pissed about that. He _liked_ this jacket, for fuck’s sake.

“Just get a new one,” Eliot tells him as they return to their hotel room, making a beeline for the emergency kit to wrap his bleeding arm. Quinn follows in with the package wrapped up and tucked under his arm, tugging his tie loose with one hand. “You can ask Luca to use the same design and everything.”

It wouldn’t be the first time Quinn asked Damien’s tailor to make him an identical suit after ruining the original one. He’s managed to destroy a couple suits during prior jobs, and Luca’s never once questioned why, as befitting of a man who dresses an international arms dealer. As much as it’s a pain in the ass, suits can be easily replaced. A lot of things can be easily replaced, in Quinn’s life.

He figures that out of all the things in his life, roughly two things are irreplaceable. One of them is hanging around his neck, and the other is shoving Quinn onto the bed, straddling his lap with a sharp grin.

“Well, if it’s already ruined,” Eliot says, running the palms of his hands down Quinn’s clothed chest, and Quinn shivers a little at the husky note of hunger in Eliot’s voice, “might as well go all the way.”

Then, Eliot grabs Quinn’s shirt and rips it open, sending the buttons flying everywhere like this is some cheap porn flick. It’s ridiculous and also stupidly hot, and Quinn is severely disappointed that he can’t return the favor to Eliot’s turtleneck. 

“Been wanting to do that for a while.” Eliot’s smiles with satisfaction as he traces the chain around Quinn’s neck, rubbing the dog tags between thumb and index finger for a moment. His blue eyes soften for an indulgent second, but soon the quiet moment slips away as Quinn squirms, rolling his hips up to grind against Eliot’s ass, and then Eliot’s leaning down with a growl, biting down on Quinn’s lower lips before he licks into Quinn’s mouth.

It’s pretty common for the two of them to have an adrenaline-fueled fuck on the heels of a job well done. Quinn doesn’t really expect this to be any different, except Eliot pulls away after a long filthy kiss that has Quinn’s blood burning for more, sitting back up with a lick of his lips.

“It’s your birthday,” Eliot points out, which Quinn already knows. Eliot had congratulated him for it in the morning, gifting him with a gorgeous Audemars Piguet watch that Quinn’s wearing on on his wrist right now. There’s only one predictable reason Eliot could be bringing this up again, and Quinn is caught between anticipation and frustration, half-eager to find out what Eliot might have up his sleeve this time and half-impatient to have some good old-fashioned fucking happening already. “So we’re gonna do what you want.”

Quinn huffs and grinds his half-hard cock against Eliot. “I think what I want is pretty damn obvious.”

Eliot rolls his eyes, fond and exasperated as he shifts his weight to sit more comfortably on Quinn’s dick. “Yeah, well, if you wanna just fuck like we normally do, that’s fine. But I was thinking that you could do whatever you wanna do to me, this time.” He raises an eyebrow at Quinn. “Like, _anything_.”

That makes Quinn pause. “Anything?”

“Yeah, genius. Whatever you want.” Eliot looks the slightest bit nervous—it’s barely noticeable, except for the way his shoulders have tensed up infinitesimally and his fingers are restlessly tapping against the bare skin of Quinn’s stomach—but fairly determined. His eyes don’t stray from meeting Quinn’s, and Quinn can’t help but feel a flicker of helpless gratitude that Eliot trusts him enough to offer this, even when he’s clearly still apprehensive about it.

“You spoil me,” Quinn says, pushing himself up to a proper sitting position so that he can wrap his arms around Eliot’s waist and kiss the corner of his mouth. He doesn’t ask if Eliot’s sure about this; Eliot never makes an offer unless he’s completely prepared to follow through on it. “I can think of a few ideas.”

The tension melts out of Eliot as he curls his arms loosely around Quinn’s neck. “Better get started, then. We gotta catch a flight outta here in eight hours.”

“That’s more than enough,” Quinn murmurs, brushing his lips against Eliot’s. “We have plenty of time, darlin’.”

-

Time, Quinn thinks, is a funny thing. In their line of work, it’s always ticking down to an ugly demise, trickling away through your fingers like fine sand cupped in your hands. And somehow, enough time has slipped by that Quinn is now the age that Eliot was when the two of them first met. It’s strange. Now that Quinn is twenty-four, he realizes how young Eliot was when their lives collided and intertwined. How both of them had been young and lost and trying their damn best to find something worth keeping in their lives. They were lucky to find each other. They’re lucky to still be alive and together, when many others in their profession have met ugly ends.

Quinn knows it’s dangerous to harbor hope in his heart, but he can’t help himself. He hopes, more than anything, that he gets to spend the rest of his life with Eliot. He hopes they get another five years. Ten, twenty. It’s a near-impossible goal with the careers they lead, so Quinn tries to keep his expectations low.

In the end, though, he won’t mind having his time run out early, as long as he gets to spend the rest of it with Eliot. Quinn doesn’t care how young he is when he dies; if he gets to have Eliot til the very end of his life, that’ll be enough for him.

-

Damien folds his hands together, his mouth curled in that half-smile of his that means he expects nothing less than complete compliance. “I know this is a little more than what I usually ask from you, but you two are the only ones available out of the ones who could pull it off.”

Eliot frowns, clearly unhappy about this, but Quinn shrugs and says, “We’ll leave in an hour.”

It’s only when they’re back in their room and packing their go bags that Eliot opens his mouth and asks, “You really wanna do this?”

“I already used to take these kinds of jobs anyway,” Quinn reminds him as he clips his Glock to the back of his belt. “Besides, it’s not like the guy’s exactly an innocent civilian. I’ve definitely done worse things than this.”

“Yeah, but you were the one choosing to take those jobs.” Eliot fiddles with one of his knives, running his thumb across the flat of the blade as he frowns down at it with a pensive look. The way he presses his lips together in a flat line betrays just how much this bothers him. “You didn’t get to choose, this time.”

Quinn pauses as he zips his bag. He knows what Eliot means. There’s a difference between getting a job offer from a client that he can easily turn down and an order from his boss who expects to be obeyed. It would be nice if Quinn could tell Eliot that he’s certain Damien would have respected their wishes if they’d firmly turned him down, but that would be a lie. And Quinn would never lie to Eliot, even if the truth was ugly and maybe a little terrifying. 

So instead, he says, “Well, I don’t mind. It’s not like I’m doing something I don’t wanna do.”

Eliot gives Quinn a long look, like he’s trying to gauge how much of Quinn’s words are casual sincerity and how much of it is resignation. Quinn opts for projecting the former, keeping his posture relaxed and his expression utterly indifferent. Soon enough, Eliot sighs and looks back down at his knife, stroking the metal one more time before he sheathes it. “Alright, then. Let’s go.”

-

When Quinn and Eliot arrive at the drug lord’s house, their mark isn’t expecting them at all, which is remarkably cavalier for a man who’s crossed Damien Moreau. He has over two dozen men armed to the teeth on the premises, but they’re not quite prepared for Quinn to shoot them down one by one as he stares down the scope of his sniper rifle. Eliot uses the confusion and mayhem to enter the building, and Quinn spends another five minutes on the rooftop across the street before packing up and heading over to provide support.

Once they’ve cornered the drug lord in his study, Eliot stands beside Quinn and doesn’t avert his gaze when Quinn aims the gun at the man’s heart. A solid, steady presence that refuses to flinch away from what Quinn is doing. Quinn both appreciates the gesture of solidarity and despairs at it.

He doesn’t let any of that show, though. He merely pastes on a bland smile, looking down at the quivering man on the floor in front of him.

“Mr. Moreau sends his regards,” Quinn says and shoots the man in the gut. Then the kneecaps. Chest. He only goes for the head when the man’s screams turn hoarse. 

When he’s done, Eliot takes his hand, the one that pulled the trigger over and over, and presses a kiss to the back of it. He doesn’t say a word, and Quinn doesn’t say anything back. He doesn’t know what he could say, anyway. All he can think of is _thank you_ or _I’m sorry_ or _you shouldn’t have been a part of this_.

Instead, he holds Eliot’s hand, just for a moment. Just until he manages to convince himself that this will be an outlier, a kind of job that Damien will hardly ever ask them to accomplish again.

Quinn can’t lie to Eliot, but for now, he can lie to himself.

-

There’s another busy month or so where Quinn and Eliot are sent all over Europe, retrieving things and occasionally beating men’s teeth in on behalf of Damien. Overall, it’s fine. It’s okay. Eliot doesn’t grit his teeth through any of the things that are expected of them, and Quinn doesn’t have to feign his willingness to do whatever Damien wants them to do. Things proceed as normal, or as normal as life can be in their line of work.

Quinn is on the verge of believing that things will continue this way, that things won’t have to change, but in the deepest, darkest part of his mind, he knows it’s false hope. Things always change. 

He’s proven right one day when Damien summons them, along with Striker and Nikolai. He wants them to go on a little trip to Berlin, and Quinn is the only one who’s fully fluent in German, with Eliot coming to a close second. It’s mostly meant to be a retrieval—there’s a stack of very confidential documents that Damien wants to get his hands on—but it’s also meant to be an act of war. As a favor to a politician high up in the German government, Damien’s offered to take care of one of their little problems, and when that little problem involves the remnants of the Stasi, it’s inevitable that the whole thing becomes a bloodbath.

“Man, these guys are disappointing,” Striker says as he stands by the doorway of the vault, his eyes sharp as they watch the hall for any threats approaching their way. The underground bunker they’re in is a complete maze, and Quinn reckons that the dozen or so men they’ve encountered so far are only a fraction of the group they’re up against. He fully expects a firefight on the long way out of here. “Y’know, I thought the whole East German super secret police thing would be way more impressive.”

“What did you expect? It’s been over ten years since they were officially dissolved,” Eliot says. He’s also keeping lookout, his eyes trained on their exit, the blade of the knife he’s holding stained red from slitting a throat open a mere five minutes ago. It’d been self-defense, but that won’t make much of a difference in Eliot’s mind anyway. Blood on his hands is blood, no matter the cause of it.

As much as Striker’s complaining about how this job isn’t the challenge he hoped for, it’s undeniable that they’re up against very skilled killers. Quinn’s suffering from a handful of shallow stab wounds and Eliot’s gotten his ribs cracked. Even Striker is bleeding from the side of his thigh and has an impressively bruised cheek. The only relatively unscathed one is Nikolai, who’s subconsciously licking his split lip as he focuses on cracking the vault open. 

Quinn doesn’t bother adding his two cents and simply reloads his gun, mentally tallying how many bullets he has left. There’s a sense of unease in his gut that he doesn’t know the name of, and it’s nagging at him, growing louder every time he puts a bullet through a man’s head. It’s not a moral crisis; it’s something much more complicated and sinister and unnerving. He doesn’t dare examine it too closely right now, lest it ruins his focus and gets him killed on the job.

Thankfully, nobody comes while Nikolai finally opens the vault’s door and they go through the numerous boxes inside to find what Damien asked for.

The way out, though, is not as quiet.

“Spencer, stop being a grumpy little bitch and clean up after yourself,” Striker chides. He doesn’t sound particularly annoyed, but there’s a slight furrow to his brow, something akin to confusion. An inability to fully understand Eliot’s choices and misgivings. “Damien said we gotta wipe ‘em out, pal.”

Quinn feels the unease grow inside of him. Eliot’s been knocking out the men coming his way, but Hal’s been making sure that none of them ever get back up by shooting each of them twice, once in the chest and once in the head. To Striker, the reason why Eliot doesn’t enthusiastically kill his opponents when he’s skilled enough to do so must be unfathomable.

At least Striker enjoys killing people in others’ stead enough to not hold any of it against Eliot. He won’t take Eliot’s refusal to kill the men that Damien wants dead as an offense or disobedience. For once, Quinn is grateful for Striker’s extreme homicidal tendencies. 

“Hal, we only figured out the location of this bunker because Eliot and Quinn did their jobs,” Nikolai says with an exasperated sigh. He’s the only person aside from Damien who’s comfortable enough with Striker to treat him as a friend, and while Quinn doesn’t quite comprehend the idea of Striker having _friends_ , he’s glad that Nikolai is here to defuse any potential tension. “Making sure that everybody’s dead is your job, not ours.”

Striker snorts. “You’re missing out.” He spreads his hands in a wide gesture with a maniacal grin. “C’mon, this is all part of the fun!”

“Having fun is great and all, but I’m here to get my part of the job done,” Eliot says flatly.

With a shrug, Striker dismisses the whole conversation. “More for me, then.”

“And there’ll be even more for you real soon, since there’s still the guys who run the operations from that office we still haven’t located.” Quinn slides his Beretta back into its holster and doesn’t look away when he meets Striker’s cold eyes. “So we should get going.”

Striker shoots Quinn a vicious grin. “You gonna let me have ‘em all?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Quinn catches a flicker of concern cross Eliot’s face. He knows what Eliot is probably thinking. Quinn’s killed every man that crossed his path today. He hadn’t been enthusiastic about it like Striker was, but he hadn’t shied away from it, either. Eliot is worried that Quinn might be pushing himself beyond his comfort zone for this job. But Quinn’s not particularly bothered by what he’s done today. It’s not something he was eager to do, but it’s nothing he’ll lose sleep over. He can’t reassure Eliot of that, though. Not in front of Striker and Nikolai. So instead he shoves his hands into his pockets and says, “They’re all yours.”

Still, there’s that sense of unease, gnawing away at him, and he doesn’t know how to shake it off, even when Striker laughs and Nikolai offers him an encouraging smile. Not even Eliot’s hand brushing against his chases that disquiet away entirely, and that fact, more than anything else, bothers him.

-

“Feels like we haven’t had this in a while,” Eliot says as they laze in their bed late into the morning. He presses a kiss to Quinn’s collarbone from where it’s peeking out above his teeshirt’s collar. “When’s the last time we had a vacation?”

Quinn thinks about it. “Last month, right after that fiasco in Damascus.”

Eliot grunts, curling an arm around Quinn’s waist and tugging him closer. “So that’s like…what, six weeks ago?”

“Pretty much.” Quinn threads his fingers through Eliot’s hair absentmindedly, relishing the first lazy morning they’ve had in weeks. He can feel Eliot’s sigh of contentment, a puff of warm breath exhaled against Quinn’s neck, and he feels a smile curl on his mouth.

He missed this. Just a quiet, indulgent pocket of time where there’s nothing but him and Eliot breathing together, not bothering to count the seconds ticking by. The outside world forgotten, if only just for a perfect, peaceful moment.

“That’s one thing I miss about freelancing,” Quinn murmurs. “We could take days off whenever we wanted.”

Eliot huffs. “Yeah, and now we’re basically on standby around the clock.”

“Full-time employment has its downsides.” Quinn rolls them over so that he’s pinning Eliot to the bed. “We’re off-duty for now, so why don’t we make the most of it?”

That makes Eliot smile, relaxed and mischievous as he tilts his head back, daring Quinn to kiss him. “You have anything in mind, sweetheart?”

With an amused huff, Quinn leans down for a long, sweet kiss, because he could never deny Eliot. When they break apart, Quinn licks his lips and smiles.“Take a wild guess, darlin.’”

From there, things progress slowly as they indulge in lingering, wet kisses, hands sliding against bare skin, working their way up to a pleasant heat that makes Quinn’s whole body burn with need. Quinn rides Eliot almost lazily, rolling his hips in an easy rhythm that he rarely indulges in. They spend the whole morning like that, luxuriating in the warmth of each other’s bodies and the serenity of these golden hours, saying each other’s names into each other’s mouths, like secrets they mean to keep forever.

It’s a lovely morning, a few hours in a paradise of their own making. And as Quinn curls up against Eliot while they get their breath back, reveling in the remnants of the heat that’s burning out in their blood, he thinks that in this moment, everything is perfect.

For now, everything is okay.

-

It’s only when Damien decides to send Quinn and Eliot on separate jobs that Quinn, for the first time since they came to San Lorenzo, doesn’t want to do what Damien asks. 

“Think about it,” Damien says, pointing out how much more efficient this could be. “It saves much more time for you both to get two jobs done at the same time rather than having you both do one job at a time together.”

“Some jobs get done faster when two people are there,” Eliot points out.

Damien acknowledges that with a tilt of his head. He’s always willing to concede a valid point. “Yes, well. Those are the jobs you should go on together. But these could be easily dealt with on your own, given each of your skills.”

Quinn hesitates. What Damien is saying isn’t wrong; while Quinn and Eliot have worked on nearly every job together in the past five years, many of those jobs hadn’t required both of them. Sure, it was always easier to have a second pair of fists to serve as backup or a distraction, but many of those jobs could’ve been accomplished alone. 

“If you can take care of these things separately at the same time, that means you’ll have more days off to spend together,” Damien reminds them, and Quinn can read the way Eliot’s refusal morphs into consideration as clear as day.

Quinn feels the same way, to be honest. He’s remembering those mornings together, their free time spent simply basking in each other’s presence, all worries forgotten. Quinn wants more of that. He wants more of Eliot’s unguarded, soft smiles and those rough hands mapping out his skin at a leisurely pace. Days where nothing else matters except for Eliot’s laughter against Quinn’s mouth.

In the end, Quinn and Eliot both acquiesce. Quinn packs his go bag and kisses Eliot, quick and chaste, before he leaves for Helsinki. Eliot stays behind, because his job is meant to be taken care of locally, and Quinn can’t help but feel a little bereft when he sits in a chair at his gate in San Lorenzo’s tiny airport. He hasn’t separated from Eliot like this at all since they first met; it feels wrong to be heading to a different city without Eliot by his side.

The sense of wrongness plagues him throughout the entire job, and he’s half-inclined to tell Damien that having the two of them work separately is a terrible idea when he returns to San Lorenzo, package in hand. But then Damien beams at him, clearly pleased and also pointedly smug as he informs Quinn that him and Eliot can take the next few days off, barring any emergencies. 

Three days of just Quinn and Eliot, relaxed and unbothered, all in exchange for the both of them spending a day apart. It’s more than a fair trade. 

“It wasn’t so bad,” Quinn says against the back of Eliot’s bare shoulder as they settle down to sleep for the night. “I mean, it felt weird to think that you weren’t there to watch my back, but the job wasn’t particularly hard.”

Eliot hums. “Yeah, I would’ve felt a lot better if I was there to have your back.” He pauses, clearly hesitant to admit that Damien was right about this. “But yeah, my job didn’t really need two people. Would’ve been overkill to have us both there.”

That settles things, then. “Guess it isn’t so bad to go on separate jobs every once in a while,” Quinn murmurs into Eliot’s skin.

“Guess not,” Eliot whispers into the dark, and that’s that.

-

They mostly go on jobs together, as they’ve always done, but it becomes an increasingly common occurrence for Quinn and Eliot to be divvied up and sent on separate jobs. Usually they’re relatively easy gigs, at least for men of their caliber, but Quinn can tell that the scales are tipping. More and more often, his jobs involve killing rather than retrieving things. Slowly but surely, he’s changing from Damien’s retrieval specialist into Damien’s assassin.

It’s nothing Quinn would balk at, but that restless unease makes itself at home in his gut every time he goes to deliver a person’s certain doom with a message and a bullet. 

It’s not that Quinn wants to follow Eliot’s example and refrain from killing. It’s not that the act of killing bothers him.

It’s not any of that, but—

-

They’re on another kind of job that requires a handful of Damien’s best men when things go sideways. Eliot’s on the other side of the neighborhood, leading the local mobsters on a merry chase while Quinn and a couple other men are searching their way through an abandoned building for a set of blueprints. Everything’s proceeding fairly smoothly when they hear a ruckus outside, and the other two head outside to see what the fuss is about while Quinn stays behind, still digging through boxes of documents. 

Just after Quinn finally gets his hands on the blueprints, an explosion two rooms away brings the whole building down on him.

He’s not entirely sure how the others managed to dig him out of the rubble, but when Quinn wakes up, he’s in a hospital in central Tangier. Eliot is at his bedside, his expression utterly blank until Quinn curls his fingers around Eliot’s hand resting on the bed. 

“Was kinda worried that the last thing I ever saw wouldn’t be you,” Quinn mumbles, and Eliot’s expression shatters apart in a way that he’s never seen before.

“Don’t fuckin’ do that to me,” Eliot says in a ragged voice, leaning down to press his forehead to the back of Quinn’s hand. He isn’t crying, which is a relief, because Quinn thinks it’d kill him if Eliot cried. It’d destroy him in a way that even bullets and collapsing buildings couldn’t accomplish. “Quinn, you can’t do this to me.”

It’s not exactly Quinn’s fault that he got stuck in a collapsing building, but he apologizes anyway. He’d say anything to get rid of that cracked, anguished note in Eliot’s voice. “Sorry.”

Eliot exhales shakily, lifting his head back up to meet Quinn’s eyes, and Quinn thinks this must be what heartbreak feels like, seeing Eliot Spencer vulnerable and cracked open and wrecked. He hates being the one that put that look on Eliot’s face. It’s at times like this that Quinn is viscerally reminded of just how important he is to Eliot. It’s satisfying, to know that he matters this much to the only person he truly cares about, but it’s also terrifying. It’s at times like this when Eliot’s whispered words come back and haunt him. _You’re going to be the death of me_. 

Quinn doesn’t want to be Eliot’s downfall.

He has a feeling it’s a little too late to wish for that.

-

It takes weeks for Quinn to heal from his broken leg and various other injuries he incurred from having an entire building crash down on him. He goes back to San Lorenzo with Eliot after the first week of hospitalization, where he continues his convalescence in the comfort of their room in Damien’s estate. Gideon and Farrow, their other two colleagues who were on the Tangier job, had taken the blueprints and returned to San Lorenzo while Quinn was still unconscious, so it’s only when they’re back that Quinn realizes just how furious Eliot is about the whole ordeal. 

When either of the two men are even in the same room as Quinn, Eliot snarls at them to fuck off. When any of the others who work for Damien try to check in on Quinn, Eliot glares and gives them a curt response about how nobody’s allowed to bother Quinn right now. Even Nikolai, who Eliot has a positive camaraderie with, gets a cold reception.

Damien isn’t free from Eliot’s seething fury, either. As far as Quinn knows, Eliot doesn’t actually tell Damien to fuck off or yell at him directly, but he can easily hear the way Eliot’s words go terse and clipped when he’s talking with their boss, professional but blatantly pissed off. Most people wouldn’t dare to treat Damien Moreau like that, but Eliot’s not most people, and Damien must respect that, because he never once tells Eliot off for his attitude.

“He cares about you,” Damien says when he pays Quinn a visit. “And you care about him. I think that’s quite admirable.”

Damien doesn’t do serious relationships, from what Quinn can tell, and though the reasons for it are unclear, it’s obvious that he has a healthy appreciation for what Eliot and Quinn have together. It’s not that Damien seems to want a relationship like theirs or seems simply happy for them, but he definitely approves of their devotion to each other. 

Quinn isn’t sure if Damien would’ve been this appreciative if Eliot and Quinn had been any less useful to him.

At any rate, Damien approves enough to let Eliot’s temper slide and give them both the time off it takes for Quinn to heal for the most part. Once the cast on Quinn’s leg is gone, Eliot finally relents enough to go on the jobs Damien gives him, leaving Quinn to stave off his boredom by himself. 

“You’re going to go on a job next week?” Nikolai asks, sounding worried. They’re hanging out in Nikolai’s suite, playing gin rummy and drinking scotch. For all that Nikolai is sincere and honest as a person, he has a phenomenal poker face, and Quinn’s impressed by how hard it is to read him regardless of whatever card game they play. Especially since Nikolai is usually incredibly expressive. For example: his pointed look at the crutch leaning against the table and concerned frown tell Quinn that Nikolai doesn’t approve of Quinn’s upcoming return to the field.

Quinn shrugs. “Well, it’s gonna be easy stuff. I won’t have to run if I’m just sitting on a rooftop and shooting a target down from over half a mile away.”

“You should never go on a job unless you’re a hundred percent fit to do so,” Nikolai chides. He pauses as he looks at his cards, then adds, “Gin.”

“Fuck.” Quinn scowls as Nikolai lays his cards down, throwing his own hand onto the table in defeat. “Yeah, well, just sitting around and not doing anything is getting on my nerves. Gotta do something to earn my keep and all.”

He says it all in a joking tone, but Nikolai narrows his eyes, searching Quinn’s face carefully as his hands pause in the middle of shuffling the deck. “Are you going back to work because you’re bored, or because you want to please Damien?”

“What, it can’t be both?” Quinn chuckles, but he soon capitulates at the sight of Nikolai’s little frown. “It’s because I’m bored. Eliot’s going out on all these jobs while I’m just stuck with the goddamn TV.” It had been nice to relax for the first couple weeks, but now it’s just mind-numbingly dull. It would’ve been better if Eliot was there to spend the slow hours with him, but on his own, Quinn found himself antsy and frustrated. “Making Damien happy is just a sweet bonus.”

Nikolai’s frown deepens a little, but he doesn’t pry any further. “Well, if it’s what you want.”

“Well, I mean, it’s not like I’m itching to go blow someone’s brains out,” Quinn remarks dryly. “I just wanna do something, and Damien doesn’t have anything else for me to do when I’m still not at a hundred percent.”

“Just some light assassination, I see.” Nikolai sips his scotch and rolls his eyes. “I suppose it isn’t very surprising. We have very fucked up job descriptions.”

Quinn snorts. “We sure do.”

Just until a few months ago, Quinn and Eliot’s job descriptions were stealing and punching people together. Now, they do different things separately, and Quinn never really signed up for that. But he’s the one who decided to come here to San Lorenzo, to Damien. He knew, deep down, that there would be a catch. He knew, but he came anyway. So maybe he did sign up for this, after all.

“One more round?” Nikolai asks, and Quinn nods. Takes a long sip of his scotch and drowns the unease in the pit of his belly. 

-

Though he lives in London, Freeman comes and goes as he pleases, often showing up with a bland smile and a financial matter that needs to be discussed urgently. Quinn never talks to him, not since the first time they met, but he sees Freeman around, and they exchange little nods of acknowledgement. Nothing more, nothing less. Honestly, Quinn doesn’t ever pay attention to him. Freeman is just another one of the men Damien hires and values and controls. Freeman isn’t even dangerous. There’s nothing worth paying attention to.

Except Quinn is proven wrong when he’s sitting near one of the entrances to the estate’s sprawling garden and he hears Damien and Freeman talking. It takes him a moment to realize that he’s actually sitting two feet away from the open window of Damien’s study, and another moment to realize that Damien’s tone has gone dangerously tight with impatience and frustration.

Damien in a bad temper doesn’t bode well for anybody—not that he’s ever seen Damien lose that shark’s smile of his entirely, but he does tend to have a more sadistic glint in his eyes when he’s in a mood—and Quinn is wondering if this is going to end in Damien giving him more names and faces to get rid of when Freeman interjects in a polite but firm tone, “Mr. Moreau, there’s no point in being so stubborn about this. You don’t have control over the flow of cash here; we have to be patient.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then a long sigh. “You’re right. There’s no point in making rash decisions about this.”

“It’s just a matter of time.” Freeman sounds encouraging and unfailingly professional. “We’re already expanding operations at a stable rate. There’s no need to rush for more.”

“As always, you’re the voice of reason,” Damien says, the good humor back in his voice, and Quinn recognizes that specific tone. It’s similar to the one he uses with Quinn. With all the other people Damien likes to keep close. An emotion akin to fondness. But there’s something warmer in this tone, something like admiration. “What would I do without you to talk some sense into me?”

This is Damien treating someone as his equal. As somebody he respects entirely. It’s the same voice Damien uses with Striker. 

It’s the exact same voice Damien uses with Eliot.

Quinn doesn’t know why, but something about that fact unnerves him. He’s not entirely sure what the problem is; Eliot is somebody worth respecting, and Quinn is proud that someone of Damien’s caliber understands that. But…there’re something troubling about this revelation, too, and Quinn doesn’t know what exactly bothers him about it.

It’s not that Quinn’s jealous; he doesn’t mind if Damien favors Eliot over him. But at the same time, he’d be less bothered if Damien’s favoritism wasn’t aimed at Eliot.

Later, when Eliot is back from a job and the both of them are curled up together in bed, Eliot’s back pressed against Quinn’s chest and Quinn’s arms around Eliot’s waist, it occurs to Quinn that he’s worried. That a part of himself thinks being favored by Damien could be a dangerous thing. 

It’s almost like Quinn wants to protect Eliot from Damien, which is a stupid thought. Eliot doesn’t need protecting. Damien wouldn’t harm Eliot, anyway. There’s no need for Quinn to feel so concerned.

And yet.

-

Once Quinn’s graduated from his crutch and has spent a couple weeks walking and running, testing the limits of his healed body, he drags Eliot to the gym.

It’s become something like a ritual of theirs. Whenever one of them gets significantly injured, they wait for the other to heal up completely, and then they go sparring. It’s their own way of reassuring each other that they’re still alive, still in one piece. Still able to fight and win and survive. Proving that they’re ready to go back into the game once more.

So Quinn and Eliot circle each other, waiting for the other to lunge. Quinn can tell Eliot’s still hesitant, not quite willing to land a blow on Quinn just yet, and it’s both sweet and annoying as hell. So Quinn goads Eliot, taunting him for a while before he goes to throw the first punch, feinting with his right hand and going in low for a jab with his left. He doesn’t hold back; he hits Eliot as hard as he can, as fast as he can, and Eliot’s fighting back soon enough, slamming his elbow into Quinn’s side when Quinn wrestles him down onto the mat.

It’s only when Quinn’s pinned him down that Eliot finally laughs and says, “Okay, fuck you, rematch. I’m not going easy on you this time.”

“I’d still win anyway,” Quinn says, grinning wide and feeling a vicious kind of glee. It’s good to feel a hundred percent in charge of his own body again. Good to feel Eliot against him, solid and alive and strong enough to come back to Quinn no matter how hard of a job he’s sent on. 

“We’ll see about that.” Eliot tilts his chin up daringly, and Quinn can’t help but lean down to kiss that beautiful smile off his face.

-

One day, Quinn comes back from a job—a quick, painless stint in rural Italy that had been fun in a bittersweet way, where he’d wished Eliot was there to enjoy the trip with him—and finds Eliot sitting on the edge of their bed, his back hunched over as he rests his elbows on his knees, head bent forward as he contemplates his hands. There’s a terrifyingly blank look on his face that has every alarm blaring in Quinn’s head, and he drops his go bag carelessly to the side as he quickly strides towards the bed. “Eliot?”

Eliot doesn’t answer, and the alarms in Quinn’s head grow louder. Pulling up to a stop in front of his partner, Quinn looks down at Eliot’s bowed head and realizes that Eliot isn’t going to move to look up at him. He knows Eliot isn’t ignoring him; Eliot would be much more obvious if he were snubbing Quinn for any dumb reason. This is Eliot at his weakest, when he can’t even muster the energy to acknowledge Quinn’s presence.

Quinn ignores the panic crawling up his chest. Crushes it under his heel and summons every ounce of calm he can manage so that he can smoothly drop to his knees and keep his voice steady when he says, “Darlin’, what’s the matter?”

Now that he can see Eliot’s face properly from close up, Quinn can see the cracks and fissures in Eliot’s carefully maintained expression. The subtle clench of his jaw. The rapid flutter of his eyelashes as he blinks too quickly. The near-silent stutter of his breath as he exhales unsteadily. Anybody who wasn’t trained the way Quinn was to read people wouldn’t see it, but Quinn can read the distress in Eliot’s blue eyes as clear as day, and his own chest hurts with an echo of the pain Eliot’s whole body radiates.

He knows better than to push, so he waits Eliot out. It takes a long time, but Eliot finally opens his mouth. “Job was rough.” His voice is hoarse, like it was drowned in water and went rusty. “Guess I’m kinda tired.”

That sounds like a hell of an understatement. Quinn makes a face that hopefully conveys his disbelief in a sufficient manner, and the corners of Eliot’s mouth twitch up a little. It’s not a real smile; Quinn can tell it’s forced, and that, more than anything else, makes him feel helplessly furious. 

“Don’t make that face, sweetheart.” Eliot’s mouth is smiling, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s just a flimsy masquerade, poorly designed to appease Quinn, and Quinn hates it. “I’m fine.”

“Don’t you fucking dare.” Quinn grabs onto both of Eliot’s hands, squeezing them tight and holding on like they’re a lifeline, the only thing to pull him back to shore. Except it’s the other way around, right now. It’s Quinn who has to bring Eliot back from wherever he’s stuck in his own mind, from whatever darkness that Eliot waded into for this goddamn job. “No lies, remember? Not between us.”

Eliot’s empty smile falters. “Quinn.”

“No,” Quinn snaps. “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to, but if you’re gonna say something, it has to be the truth.” He tugs on Eliot’s hands. “So don’t tell me you’re fine. You’re a shit liar.”

“I can’t—shit.” Eliot looks down at their joined hands. “You wouldn’t wanna hear it.”

“Try me,” Quinn dares him. 

Eliot’s expression crumples, and fuck, Quinn can’t let his heart break right now. He needs to keep it together for Eliot. He needs to show Eliot that it’s okay to tell Quinn whatever awful thing he’s done. That Quinn is strong enough to hear it. That Quinn will still be Eliot’s no matter how bloody Eliot’s hands are.

“There was a deal down at the docks,” Eliot says, his gaze dropping to his hands once more. Quinn knows where Eliot’s talking about. It’s Damien’s favorite spot for trading weapons for other goods. “Big client. I was there to make sure everything was secure.”

That makes sense. Damien’s been increasingly consistent about taking Eliot along for his bigger deals, often pairing him up with Striker. As if in Damien’s mind, the two men were alike. As if Eliot could ever be anything as awful as Striker is.

“Everything was going well, but then,” Eliot pauses, swallowing hard, “Diego showed up.”

Diego is one of the workers at the docks, someone Quinn and Eliot have both talked to on a number of occasions during the many times they’ve visited the place on Damien’s behalf. Diego’s one of the few workers at the docks who aren’t on Damien’s payroll, mostly because he’s not a full-time employee there. Moving things at the docks is just one of the three jobs he works to support five kids on his own. He’s fetched cargo for Eliot and Quinn several times, oblivious to the fact that he’s chatting with the employees of an arms dealer and that the boxes he brings them are full of smuggled goods.

Diego was a civilian.

“Client didn’t want any witnesses.” Eliot’s voice is scraped hollow, full of a quiet grief that makes Quinn’s whole body ache. “Damien told me to take care of it.”

There are a million things Quinn could ask. Why Striker wasn’t the one ordered to do the dirty work. Whether Diego begged for mercy. If Eliot had considered refusing to follow Damien’s orders. All these questions climb up Quinn’s throat, but he only asks, “Knife?”

Eliot shakes his head. “Broke his neck.”

_It’s okay_ , Quinn wants to say. It’d be a lie, so he doesn’t.

_You were doing as you were told._ Eliot left the army for exactly that, so that wouldn’t work, either.

_I’m sorry_. It’s a meaningless platitude in the face of innocent blood already spilled. Quinn knows better than to offer those.

In the end, he settles for bending down to press his lips to the back of Eliot’s right hand, then kisses the left one. He can hear the pained sound Eliot makes at the gesture, and it makes Quinn want to grab a knife. Makes him want to load a gun and put a bullet through someone’s head. Makes him want to offer his own rotten heart and bloody hands to Eliot and say, _I’m not afraid of your sins. I’m still all yours, every awful part of me, just like how every part of you is mine_. 

“I could’ve said no.” Eliot sounds torn and weary and unsure, as if he doesn’t know whether to believe himself or not. “But I didn’t.”

He could have, but Eliot wouldn’t have risked it with a client present. He wouldn’t have risked Damien’s reputation by disobeying him publicly. Because Eliot is loyal, even when he shouldn’t be, and Eliot Spencer’s loyalty is both a blessing and a curse. 

“You were trying to not let him down,” Quinn says, raising his head to look at Eliot again. Eliot’s gaze flickers up, meeting Quinn’s eyes, then skitters away. “Eliot, look at me.” When Eliot doesn’t, he plays dirty and adds, “Please.”

Eliot blinks, then slowly drags his gaze back to meet Quinn’s. When he has Eliot’s full attention, Quinn lets go of Eliot’s hands to frame his face, anchoring them both into this moment.

“I don’t care if you did it because you wanted to or if you didn’t want to but did it anyway. I don’t care if you liked it or hated it. I don’t care if you do it again.” He wishes he had something better to say. Something kinder or smarter or more hopeful. In the end, Quinn has only his whole damn heart to offer. “I’m still all yours. And you’re still mine, if you want to be. Whatever you do, whatever happens next—that’s not changing, okay?” He strokes Eliot’s cheekbone with a thumb. He doesn’t know if this is enough, but it’s all he has. “You have me, darlin’. All the way. ”

For a moment, Eliot doesn’t answer, and Quinn’s wondering if this wasn’t enough after all when Eliot’s hands curl into the lapels of Quinn’s jacket, tugging him forward so that their foreheads are pressed against each other. 

“Only thing that counts,” Eliot murmurs, and Quinn closes his eyes against the urge to cry. Instead, he kisses Eliot, until that horrible urge goes away. Until Eliot kisses him back hungrily, like he means it. Until they both forget, if only for a moment, how deep they’ve wandered into the dark.

-

They’re in the middle of a firefight in Aleppo when the equilibrium is disrupted irreversibly.

It’s all-out war between them and a group of mercenaries hired by somebody intent on putting a dent in Damien’s business, and so far, they’re fairly evenly matched. Quinn is pretty certain that their own side is more talented, but the other side has more automatic weaponry. It’s really a matter of closing in when their opponents run out of bullets.

“Honestly, they better run out of ammo soon, or I’m gonna die of boredom in here,” Striker growls, and Quinn glances down to where Striker’s shirt has gone tacky with blood. One bullet to the chest and two to the gut. Striker doesn’t seem pained or worried. Only annoyed.

“You’ll die either way,” Eliot says in a flat voice from beside Quinn, where they’re leaning against each other, hidden in this little shack that they hauled Striker into after he was shot. “They’ll take you down easy if you try to fight with those injuries.”

Striker chuckles. The sound of it is wet with blood. “Going down fighting is the best way to go.”

“Be my fucking guest.” Quinn tilts his head towards the door. “If you wanna be useful, you might as well be our diversion.”

Striker looks at him, then grins. “Might as well.”

“You’re fucking insane,” Eliot says, but he offers a throwing knife to Striker, who takes it with deft fingers that are surprisingly steady despite the blood loss. 

After another wet, bloody chuckle, Striker straightens up, slightly unsteady on his feet, and says, “You better win.”

Eliot unsheathes another knife, this one held in a firm grip, ready to slice through anything that’s between them and victory. “We always win.”

“That’s why Damien likes you so much.” Striker smirks, then salutes them lazily. Turns and goes out the door just as he adds, “Guess you’re the best one for the job after all.”

-

After Striker’s death, Eliot is promoted to Damien’s chief enforcer.

Immediately after that, Quinn gets a new gun. Another Beretta, which he straps to his ankle.

The two events might seem unrelated, and Quinn wouldn’t want anybody to think otherwise.He doesn’t want anybody, not even Eliot, to know what went through his mind when he saw Eliot be named as Striker’s successor. Nobody needs to know what Quinn was thinking when he bought his new Beretta. Quinn doesn’t want to think about it too hard, either.

He wants to protect Eliot. That’s all it really is.

-

As Damien’s newly minted chief enforcer, Eliot is often called upon to deliver punishing messages to other criminals or to go accompany Damien to all kinds of places. Quinn is still paired up with Eliot for jobs regularly, but they spend more time apart than together, nowadays. Eliot barely gets any time off, so all they really have are the nights together in their bedroom. Some nights are quiet and full of exhaustion, the two of them seeking solace in each other’s warmth; some nights are loud and full of desperation, the two of them seeking satisfaction in each other’s heat.

It’s not just Eliot’s schedule that changes after his promotion. It’s the attitude of the other men, too. Some turn bitter at Eliot being chosen over them. Some warm up to him, seeking his favor. Some even treat Quinn differently, thanks to his association with Eliot. Quinn doesn’t care about any of it, really, as long as none of them are going to cause Eliot any problems. 

Well, he does care about Nikolai, who’s gone quieter these days. Not too much, but just enough for Quinn to notice.

“You miss Striker?” Quinn asks, when Eliot isn’t here and he’s seeking out Nikolai’s company because he’s bored. Definitely not because he’s lonely. “I know you two were friends.”

Nikolai shrugs. His smile is genuine but a little weak. “Maybe a little.”

“I mean, I guess it’s weird to not have him around anymore.” Quinn doesn’t really miss Striker, but he does miss the days when Striker was Damien’s guard dog, not Eliot. “He used to be so fucking loud.”

“He had a strong personality,” Nikolai says dryly. He rubs at the leather strap around his wrist in an absentminded gesture, his gaze going distant. “I don’t think Damien misses him.”

Quinn pauses and thinks that over. He knows what Nikolai means. Damien hasn’t ever taken the time to mourn a loss. He’d seamlessly replaced Striker with Eliot and hadn’t broken stride even for a second. Obviously, there’s no time to waste when you’re an international arms dealer, and maybe Damien’s privately mourning on the inside, but there’s no way to tell.

So what exactly, Quinn wonders, about this is bothering Nikolai?

“Maybe he doesn’t want to show any weakness,” Quinn says.

Nikolai looks at him, resignation flickering across his face before it goes carefully blank. “Maybe we’re expendable.”

It’s not like Quinn hasn’t considered the possibility, but in a way, he doesn’t think he really cares. Damien values them. He wants them to be alive, won’t purposefully send them to their deaths, and he’ll give them everything they want as long as they do as he wants. It’s a fair trade, and if Damien isn’t going to miss him if he dies, well. Quinn will be too dead to care.

Thinking of Eliot as expendable, though, doesn’t sit right with him. He thinks it’s unlikely; Damien’s regard for Eliot is high, almost as high as his respect for Freeman, and at least that means Eliot won’t be used and discarded.

It’s complicated, to be honest. Quinn trusts Damien, as much as he’s capable of trusting people who aren’t Eliot, and he thinks Damien really has their best interests at heart, second only to his own best interests. He _likes_ Damien, for what it’s worth. He knows Eliot does, too.

But at the same time, something about Damien sets Quinn’s teeth on edge. He worries, even if he never admits it aloud, that Damien will change them, and not entirely in a good way.

Quinn likes Damien. It’s just that he doesn’t feel safe around him.

-

It’s just Quinn and Eliot and Gideon on a job. They’re in Glasgow, combing through a a warehouse full of dead bodies—a product of their combined handiwork, and Quinn hasn’t exactly been keeping count of how many people Eliot’s killed, but he’s been watching out of the corner of his eye and it’s not a pretty number, as far as he can tell—to look for the goods that were stolen from Damien en-route to San Lorenzo. 

They’ve all split up, Eliot circling around outside the warehouse while Gideon takes the western half of the place. Quinn takes the east side of the warehouse, walking along the isles of containers and breaking each of them open, when he finds a skinny boy squeezed between boxes, looking terrified.

God, he looks like he’s barely an adult. Maybe seventeen. He’s a _kid_.

He’s a witness.

Damien had been very firm about leaving no witnesses, not for this job, and Quinn doesn’t know what to do. He could let the kid go, probably contrive a diversion and usher the kid out of the back door, but if even a whisper gets out of a survivor, if the kid ever finds his way to the authorities and says anything, it’ll get back to Damien. And the person who’ll be held responsible is Eliot.

It’s Eliot’s job to take care of these loose ends. If Quinn spares this kid, it’ll be on Eliot to get rid of him.

Quinn can’t let that happen.

“Quinn, the hell is taking you so long?” Gideon’s voice says just as he turns around the corner, seconds away from discovering the kid. Seconds away from seeing Quinn hesitate, a sign of weakness, something that could be used to drag Quinn and Eliot down.

He makes his choice and raises his gun. Aims and fires.

“There was a witness,” Quinn says, his voice almost perfectly steady, and Gideon blinks at the dead kid, then at Quinn. In Quinn’s gut, the unease takes shape. Consolidates into something ugly and horrifying.

“Well, good job,” Gideon comments. 

Quinn allows himself one moment to look at the kid’s blank face, burning it into his memory, then turns away. “Come on. We have a job to do.”

Later, once they’ve recovered the goods and are heading back to San Lorenzo, Gideon doesn’t bother bringing up the incident to Eliot. Quinn doesn’t show it, but he’s glad. He’s not ashamed of killing the kid, but he doesn’t want Eliot to realize why Quinn did it. 

He doesn’t want Eliot to know just how far Quinn would go for him. He has a feeling it’d break Eliot’s heart, and Quinn would never forgive himself if he did that.

-

Quinn doesn’t mind killing, he really doesn’t. It’s not that the act of killing bothers him. But what bothers him is that he doesn’t feel like he has a choice in it anymore. 

He is, he realizes, scared of finding out the consequences if he refuses to pull the trigger.

He’s terrified that Eliot will be the one to pay the price if he says no.

-

“Gideon mentioned something the other day,” Alonso says, and Quinn feels his blood run cold. There’s just the two of them in the luxurious library that takes up a whole wing of the sprawling mansion they live in. He’d been vaguely aware that Gideon and Alonso are on good terms, but he hadn’t expected this. “You’re more professional than I thought.”

“Never seen me fail a job yet, have you?” Quinn asks, just a little terse in spite of himself.

Alonso huffs, soft and amused. “Damien chose Spencer because he’s stronger. But you?” He looks at Quinn with a piercing gaze that Quinn doesn’t back down from, maintaining eye contact even when he hates Alonso’s analytical expression, trying to take Quinn apart and reassemble him into something that makes sense. There’s almost something like appreciation in the crooked curve of his mouth. “You’re the one who can survive this place.”

With that said, Alonso leaves, and Quinn’s left with a pounding heart and a dry mouth that can’t spit out the words, _he’d survive, too. He has to. I couldn’t survive at all without him_.

-

What Eliot can never know: Quinn would do anything for him. He’d kill a hundred innocent lives if it meant sparing Eliot from having to take a single one. For Eliot, he’d burn down a city, raze it down to the ground. 

If Damien wants to make Eliot into something bad, then Quinn will be right there with him. He’ll be worse. He’ll be crueler. He’ll do whatever it takes to save Eliot from becoming something he can’t live with. To protect Eliot, no matter the cost.

And if that means becoming a monster, then let him be damned.


	7. Chapter 7

On Quinn’s twenty-fifth birthday, he and Eliot go to the outskirts of Kavala, where there’s a spacious mansion located near the cliffs of the sea. It’s the home of a prominent Greek mafia boss, tightly protected by dozens of his underlings. The place might as well be a fortress.

But Eliot is still sent to make a statement about how Damien Moreau does not tolerate other criminals encroaching on his territory and attempting to ruin his business. And naturally, because this isn’t a one-man job, Quinn goes, too. They take a handful of other men, the more competent ones outside of Damien’s favorites, and the two of them plan a tactical assault carefully in a way that reminds Quinn of rural Botswana, of Shelley’s smile and relentless heat.

It’s an afternoon full of sunshine and peaceful quiet when they break into the mansion using an armored truck they stole, driving through the gates and into the guards at the front. In the wake of the chaos, Quinn guns down the first two men that run out of the building, and Eliot throws a knife into the chest of the third. The men they’ve brought are split into pairs and sent to clear the east and west wings of the mansion, while Eliot and Quinn take the central rooms, going deeper into the building as they bring down their enemies one by one. 

With every room they pass through, the whole building grows quieter. The shouting dwindles. The screaming cuts off. The breathing stops. They leave behind a trail of bodies in their wake as they head into the heart of the mansion.

Eliot doesn’t hesitate. He uses his knives. A broken wine bottle. A goddamn pool cue stick. He takes whatever is in reach and strikes down every man in his path, leaving them to bleed out, and Quinn shoots each of them in the head for good measure. Eliot barely breaks stride the whole way through, and as he walks beside him, Quinn feels something bitter climb up his throat. He’s doing his best to shoot everybody on sight before Eliot can reach them, but he isn’t fast enough when there are four different men rushing them from all sides, or when they’re nearly blindsided by two gunmen crashing through the door. Whoever Quinn doesn’t manage to shoot first, Eliot takes care of. Whoever Eliot leaves gurgling and dying on the floor, Quinn takes care of.

They make one hell of a duo. For once, that fact doesn’t fill Quinn with pride.

Eliot doesn’t hesitate, right up until the moment they reach the second floor’s master bedroom, where they find their main target shaking, his arms around his young daughter as if he could shield her with his body. 

He’s a relatively young man, given his position. He’s only in his mid-thirties, and his daughter is barely ten years old, wide-eyed with terror as she stares at them from her father’s arms. Quinn knows, from the intel they collected, that there’s no wife. She died years ago from illness, and there are no other children. No other innocent loose ends except the one right here.

“Not her,” the man begs, barely a hardened criminal anymore. Just a father on his knees, hugging his daughter tight and pleading for mercy. “She’s not part of this.”

Eliot stands in the doorway, unmoving, and Quinn keeps his gun trained on the man in front of them, maintaining a calm facade and steady hands even as his heart rate doubles. Damien had been clear that he wanted no survivors. He doesn’t know what Eliot’s choice will be, but if Eliot gives in to Damien’s demands, which he’s been doing increasingly often, then Quinn has to be quicker than Eliot.

Finally, after what feels like eons, Eliot says, “We were told to kill all the mafia. She ain’t mafia.”

Relief bubbles up through Quinn, sharp as knives, and he steps forward, making the rest of the decision for Eliot. “Take the kid and get out.”

Eliot pauses.

“Hurry up and go,” Quinn hisses, not even bothering to look at him. “You’re wasting goddamn time.”

That gets Eliot moving, and soon he’s moving forward, grabbing the girl by her arms, tugging her away from her father’s embrace. The man calls her name in an anguished voice, but he lets her go, and soon Eliot’s hoisting her over his shoulder, walking away.

Struggling to escape Eliot’s grip, the girl screams for her father, arm outstretched, trying to reach for him as Eliot exits the bedroom. The whole mansion echoes with her wailing.

On his knees, the man Quinn is about to kill looks up, jaw trembling and eyes shining with unshed tears, and Quinn can’t help but feel pity. Not because he’s about to kill the man, but because he’s seeing a fearsome mafia boss reduced to this: a father begging for his child to be spared. 

This is what love does to you, Quinn thinks. It becomes your greatest downfall. Turns you into something helpless. 

Very quietly, almost regretfully, Quinn says, “Mr. Moreau sends his regards.”

Then he shoots the man right between the eyes.

-

They set the whole mansion on fire. Everybody in the right circles will know what happened and why. They’ll know who came here and who sent them. They’ll know.

What they won’t know: the girl packed away in the trunk of a car, which Quinn drives into the heart of the city while Eliot keeps the other men busy. There, he puts the girl on a train to Thessaloniki and he gives her a piece of paper with a name of a contact who owes him a favor. He tells her to go with the woman who will come to pick her up, and that she’ll follow that woman out of the country and keep her mouth shut if she wants to survive. 

He watches her board the train, and that’s the last he ever sees of her.

Later, in the hotel room they’re staying in for the night, Quinn listens to the sound of Eliot’s steady breathing and thinks that he would’ve killed her, if he needed to. If it meant sparing Eliot from doing the deed, he would’ve done it without a single regret.

With that thought—the scent of blood and ash still thick in his throat, listening to the sound of Eliot breathing but not sleeping, both of them not quite free from the clutches of the massacre they’ve committed today—Quinn’s twenty-fifth birthday ends.

-

“I’m proud of you both,” Damien says with a warm smile, and Quinn is caught between relief and dread at those words. “You never disappoint me.”

Eliot clears his throat. “Pretty sure we sent a hell of a message out to everybody else.” He crosses his arms, not quite in a gesture of defiance, but it’s still an indication of how serious he is when he asks “You need us to send the same message twice?”

Quinn knows, even if Eliot doesn’t let it show in his face or voice, that this is Eliot’s way of saying _think carefully before you send us out for an encore, because I’d really rather not have to repeat this_. He also knows, with an awful kind of certainty, that if Damien asked sincerely enough, if he made his case thoughtfully and logically, Eliot would give in and do it all over again anyway.

“I’m sure there’s no need for that.” Damien shakes his head, and relief floods through Quinn as Eliot’s shoulders relax just the slightest bit. “We can send out a reminder if anybody decides to try interfere with our business again. And I’m sure anybody who’s foolish enough to try that after this warning will deserve what’s coming for them.”

“Of course,” Eliot says, and Quinn nods. It’s unlikely that anybody will try anything reckless against Damien for a long while, and any idiot who looks at Kavala and thinks crossing Damien is too stupid to live. For what it’s worth, this seems like a fair call. 

It’s funny, if Quinn really thought hard about it. The idea that idiots who get in Damien’s way are fair game. That those fools are the ones at fault for not getting the message after a whole organization was slaughtered over the course of an afternoon. There’s something remarkably twisted about the whole concept of fairness in this situation. 

So he doesn’t think too hard about it.

Instead of thinking about all the people he’s killed in the past couple days or all the people he’ll kill on Damien’s orders soon enough, Quinn focuses on Damien’s satisfied smile and his recommendation that the two of them take the rest of the week off as a reward for a job well done. Instead of contemplating how natural it’s become for him to shoot down helpless men on their knees just because Damien said it was the best thing to do, Quinn ignores the heavy, leaden weight in his gut and thanks Damien for his generosity.

Instead of burying his face in his hands and screaming, Quinn pushes Eliot up against the wall of their bedroom and kisses him viciously.

Even when everything else has gone wrong, even when Quinn feels like he’s choking on blood and ashes, Eliot tastes sweet on his tongue, like water offered in a desert. Like salvation that he doesn’t deserve. 

Eliot kissing him back, desperate and deep, is the closest thing to absolution that Quinn will ever know.

“Do you think we’ve become something awful?” Eliot asks, dragging Quinn in by the hips so that they’re pressed against each other, his breath hot against Quinn’s mouth as his blue eyes search Quinn’s for answers that can’t be spoken aloud.

Quinn presses his forehead against Eliot’s and tries to find a hopeful truth to offer, but in the end, all he can say is, “Not you. Not to me.”

“What about you?” A warm hand comes up to cup Quinn’s cheek, and Quinn has to swallow the urge to tell Eliot everything. The ugly, terrible truth: that they’ve both changed for the worse, and of the two of them, Quinn has changed more. That he’s still changing, and that he doesn’t think he can stop.

He doesn’t say any of that out loud. Instead, he turns to press a kiss to Eliot’s palm, and offers him a half-hearted smile. “I’ve always been awful, darlin’.” 

“Not to me,” Eliot murmurs, and Quinn’s whole chest aches with how badly he wants to forget the rest of the world. All he wants is Eliot; the whole fucking world could crumble apart and Quinn wouldn’t give a damn as long as Eliot is with him.

“Stop overthinking it.” Quinn doesn’t know if he’s talking to Eliot or himself. Maybe it’s both. “We got the job done, and everything else was collateral. Forget everything else.” He takes a hold of Eliot’s wrist, pulling his hand away just enough to press a kiss to callused fingertips that were drenched with blood only a day ago. “What we’ve become doesn’t matter as long as it keeps us alive.”

“As long as we can live with it.” Eliot’s frowning now, and Quinn shuts that down with a hard, bruising kiss. 

When they break apart, Quinn puts his heart under the knife and asks, “You gonna walk away from me if I’ve changed into something worse?”

Eliot doesn’t even hesitate. “Never. Not unless you wanted me to.” He leans in to bite Quinn’s lower lip for a slow moment, licking it slow and sweet before he pulls back a little. “Do you want me to?”

Quinn answers by pulling Eliot by his belt loops towards the bed, shoving Eliot onto it and climbing after him to straddle his lap. What he should do: smile down at Eliot, coy and teasing, and ask him to guess what Quinn wants. What he wants to do: snarl down at Eliot, honest and vehement, and tell him that if he leaves, Quinn will never recover from the loss of him.

What Quinn actually does: say nothing at all and bend down to kiss Eliot until they’re both breathless, hands scrabbling at each others clothes.

It’s only when Quinn is naked and panting, sweat-slick skin sliding against Eliot’s, digging his nails into Eliot’s thighs and forcing him closer, that he finally manages to say, “I’m not letting you go. You’re _mine_.”

Eliot sighs into the crook of Quinn’s neck, and it sounds perilously close to a sob. “Okay.” It’s not quite a prayer, but it’s close enough when he says, “Don’t give me up, sweetheart.”

And because Quinn’s answer to Eliot is always yes, enthusiastically and wholeheartedly, Quinn easily promises, “Never, darlin’.” He presses a kiss to Eliot’s hair and closes his eyes, the world outside their bedroom forgotten for just this blissful moment. “It’s just you and me, all the way.”

-

Quinn is out on a job with Nikolai while Eliot’s off accompanying Damien for a deal when he sees the posters for the first time. They’re in the downtown area of San Lorenzo, on their way to intercept a package, and when Quinn sees the colorful posters, he pauses and huffs in amusement. From beside him, Nikolai says, “I forgot that the election is only ten months away.”

“It’s a big deal, isn’t it? One term in the office is seven years, here.” Quinn’s never been a fan of politics, except for when it paid handsomely for an assassination. He doesn’t have to worry about payment because he’s living off of Damien’s wealth at the moment, but he still keeps track of political matters, just in case. “Hey, you’re a dual citizen, right? You can vote.”

Something shifts in Nikolai’s expression. It’s subtle, but Quinn notices the tightening of Nikolai’s jaw and dissatisfaction in his eyes before it all disappears in a blink, leaving only a faint smile and a hint of resignation. “I can, yes. Whether it’ll matter…I’m not sure.”

Quinn shrugs. He’s never cast a vote in his life. Mostly because he’s been an international criminal since he was a teenager. “Don’t they say every vote counts, or whatever?”

“Not all the time.” Nikolai watches the people chattering on the street in front of the colorful campaign posters, his expression blank. It’s a little unnerving, given Nikolai’s smiling, affable nature, but he’s been quieter these past few months. A little more withdrawn into his own shell, which is a shame, because Quinn likes talking to Nikolai. He likes Nikolai’s good-natured disposition, his wicked sense of humor, and his honesty that rivals Eliot’s. Quinn would never admit it out loud, but it’s a little disappointing that he doesn’t get to hear Nikolai laugh at his jokes as much as he used to.

“Well, no harm in giving it a shot.” Quinn looks at the list of candidates. None of them seem particularly impressive. “Just pick a guy who won’t make our lives harder and go for it.”

Nikolai huffs, and Quinn feels a flicker of delight at the sight of the amused curl on his mouth. “So a president who’ll be friendly to criminals?”

“Doesn’t have to be all criminals,” Quinn says with a grin. “Just us.”

“Just Damien,” Nikolai adds.

That would be good enough to ensure Quinn and Eliot’s job security. “Yeah, sounds good to me.”

Nikolai stares at the people just a little longer, something wistful flickering and dying in his eyes before he turns away with a wry smile. “Well, we’ll see how it goes in ten months.” He claps a hand to Quinn’s back and steers them away, towards their destination. “Time to get to work.”

“Break a law and cast a vote. Sounds very democratic,” Quinn jokes, and they both start laughing as they walk away.

-

When Quinn comes back from a job that took place in the countryside of Nepal, he finds Eliot in their bed, sleeping off two bullet wounds to the torso. One to the upper chest and one to the gut. Neither of them hit any vital organs, but they came perilously close. 

Needless to say, Quinn is _pissed_.

“Where the hell were you?” He hisses at Zayas, who is nearly a full head taller than him but looks a little cowed anyway. Zayas was promoted into Damien’s favorites only a month ago, and he was one of the men that had been at Kavala to witness Quinn and Eliot’s handiwork. He clearly knows that Quinn could shoot him right now and Damien wouldn’t even blink. It’s obvious who Damien values more between the two of them.

Zayas, to his credit, doesn’t stutter when he answers with something inane about how the job had been a messy one, and Quinn decides it’s not worth his time or bullets to maim Zayas for letting Eliot get shot on his watch. Instead, Quinn point-blank tells him to work his ass off while Eliot’s in recovery, and if Quinn sees him lazing around at any point, he’s going to kill him.

“You’re just like Eliot,” Nikolai deadpans, looking a little amused as Zayas practically trips over his feet to go ask Damien for a job to get away from San Lorenzo for a while. “You’re going to be a great substitute.”

“I sure hope so,” Quinn says grimly. 

Nikolai pats his shoulder. “Well, good luck, друг.”

-

While Eliot’s out of commission because of his injuries, Damien asks Quinn to step into the role of his chief enforcer. There’s relatively little grumbling from the other men regarding Quinn’s temporary promotion; it’s not only Damien’s enemies who’ve learned a lesson from Kavala.

Acting as Damien’s chief enforcer isn’t as hard as Quinn thought it would be, which is both relieving and disconcerting. Sure, he beats and kills a number of people, but there’s nothing particularly difficult or troubling about the jobs Damien gives him. He only kills a civilian once, and it’s a politician with dubious connections, so he’s hardly innocent.

The harder jobs, ironically, are the ones where Quinn accompanies Damien to his business deals and meetings. The deals are comparatively easy. All Quinn has to do is make sure security is tight, and maintain his most intimidating facade for the duration of the whole thing. It’s obvious that he looks a little young for the part, but he uses every inch of his height and his immaculately tailored suits to discourage anybody from blatantly looking down at him. It helps that most of the criminals that Damien deals with eye him nervously when they hear his name. Even without Damien’s infamy bolstering it, Quinn’s reputation apparently precedes him.

The really difficult jobs are the ones where Quinn goes to Damien’s meetings with important people. Bankers, CEOs of global conglomerates, and even government officials from a variety of countries. For these meetings, Damien takes just Quinn and Alonso, with Freeman occasionally tagging along. And these are the occasions when Quinn witnesses firsthand the sheer scope of Damien’s operations. 

He’s always known, somewhat vaguely, that Damien is powerful. Quinn has been working for Damien long enough and brutally enough to know that Damien can crush entire syndicates and sweep the whole mess under the rug. And yet, Quinn’s just never fully realized how much influence Damien wields on an international level. It isn’t until Quinn’s attended a meeting with a prime minister and two separate presidents that are under Damien’s thumb that Quinn realizes that Damien has his hooks in multiple governments, with powerful figureheads acting on his whims. While Damien doesn’t outright own any entire government just yet, it’s only a matter of time.

It should be a good thing. It means that Quinn is working for a powerful man. That he and Eliot will be considered untouchable as long as they work for Damien, and that the both of them will benefit from the wealth and influence Damien possesses. 

It should be a good thing. And yet, Quinn only feels a muted kind of despair seep into his bones with every meeting, with every person who scrambles to please Damien.

Damien isn’t a man to make an enemy out of, if you want to survive. And somehow, swallowing that fact is the hardest part of this job.

-

The day Eliot fully recovers from his injuries, Quinn takes him to the gym and starts their round of sparring with a full-body tackle. They’ve never gone easy on each other before, but Quinn fights particularly relentlessly today. He can’t even explain why. He just wants to _fight_ , and it’s hard to tell whether he wants to win or he wants to lose.

Regardless of what Quinn wants, he ends up on his back, pinned to the floor with Eliot’s forearm pressed against his throat. Eliot grins down at him, looking perfectly joyful in a way that makes Quinn’s ribs hurt, and not just because Eliot punched him there. 

“That the best you got, sweetheart?” Eliot asks.

Quinn feels his the inside of his chest ache as he smiles up at Eliot, baring his teeth. “Darlin’, we’re just getting started.”

Then he manages to knock Eliot off of him, starting another round all over again. 

Later, once they’re done and sufficiently sore and satisfied, they take a shower together, groping each other until Quinn drops to his knees and sucks Eliot off under the warm spray of water, reveling in the sound of Eliot’s husky groans echoing in their ensuite bathroom. Once Eliot’s come down his throat, Quinn allows himself to be hauled up to his feet, kissed breathless as Eliot jerks him off rough and fast. It doesn’t take long for Quinn to come with a low whine, toes curling as the orgasm rolls through his body, and when he gets his breath back, they both laugh against each other’s mouths, trading lazy kisses until Eliot decides they’ve wasted enough water and turns the shower off.

After they towel off and pull on comfortable clothes, Quinn fiddles with his music player, connecting it to a set of nice speakers he bought a while ago, and Eliot snorts when he hears the first notes of the “Waltz of the Flowers” fill the room. “Tchaikovsky, really?”

“It’s a classic,” Quinn says, stepping into Eliot’s space, and their hands settle into position as naturally as breathing: Eliot’s hand joining Quinn’s, the other hand resting on Quinn’s shoulder while Quinn presses his hand to Eliot’s back. They start moving at the same time without a word, completely in sync, Eliot following Quinn’s lead seamlessly as they dance in slow circles.

They dance like that for a few minutes, not speaking, simply breathing in the same rhythm as they move in tandem. Despite all the adrenaline that burned through his system and how loose-limbed he is from all they’ve done today, Quinn still can’t quite relax properly, and he’s sure Eliot can tell. So he dances through one song, then another, until the tension has bled out enough for him to bring up a subject that’s been on the tip of his tongue all day.

“You can take it easy for a little longer, if you want,” Quinn murmurs. “I don’t mind standing in for you for a few more days.”

Eliot huffs, his breath soft and warm against the skin of Quinn’s neck. “It’s my job. I’m ready to get back to it.” His hand squeezes Quinn’s. “I’ll tell Damien tonight.”

Quinn draws Eliot in closer, abandoning graceful footwork to instead feel Eliot’s warmth pressed against him, their steps slowing down as they transition into slow dancing, which neither of them actually favor, despite the fact that they’ve done it dozens of times. There’s not enough movement, not enough speed, and it’s merely a glorified embrace, in Quinn’s opinion.

But it’s the best way for him to hide his face, feeling Eliot’s hair tickle his cheek as he swallows down his reluctance and relinquishes the bloody seat by Damien’s side to the one person he never wanted to see sitting there. “Yeah, okay.”

-

Quinn and Eliot go to Manila to hunt down a woman who’s been embezzling from one of Damien’s funds. The sweltering heat here is nothing like the Mediterranean warmth in San Lorenzo; it’s much more humid, and Quinn can feel his clothes sticking to his damp skin as he sweats even when he’s not even moving. The only upside of the humidity if that if he’s breaks out into a cold sweat from unease, nobody else will notice. 

And he’s definitely feel a flicker of unease in his gut as he reloads his gun, keeping watch out the window. It’s only exacerbated by the sound of muffled crying and a gruff voice snapping an order to shut up.

“Stand down, Kravitz,” Eliot says calmly in a tone that promises retribution if his command isn’t obeyed, and Quinn can practically hear Kravitz’s jaw snapping shut.

Eliot doesn’t offer the crying girl any comfort at all, and Quinn knows, with devastating certainty, that Eliot can’t afford to be kind. Not when there are two other men in the room, who will seize upon even the slightest whiff of weakness. Not when this job entails destroying innocent lives.

“I’m sure she’ll give back the money,” the girl says tearfully. She’s sixteen and skinny, looking scared out of her wits as she curls up tighter into her tiny grandmother’s arms, the two of them clutching each other in fear as they eye the men occupying each corner of the room they’ve holed up in the center of Marikina. She’s wearing shorts and an oversized shirt and no shoes, because nobody had grabbed a pair when they’d kidnapped her from her bedroom. “She’ll give it all back.”

Her grandmother looks up at Eliot pleadingly. “Please,” she begs, looking at the girl crying into her shoulder, “at least let her go. I’ll stay.”

“We can’t,” Eliot says curtly. “We’ll let you go when she’s here.”

Chesa Lopez has no other family but her younger sister and elderly grandmother. If she decides to abandon them and go on the run, then this job is going to drag out in a way that isn’t pretty. 

Then again, things won’t be pretty even if she does show up. But at least it’ll be over quickly.

It takes another hour of waiting before Quinn spots the figure rushing up the street, a black briefcase in her hand as she makes a beeline for their building. As she nears the door, Quinn can read the fear on her face, and he doesn’t feel any pity for her at all. If anything, he feels irritation, because she should’ve known better. She never should’ve dared to lay a finger on Damien’s money. But she did, and now he’s here with Eliot, taking innocent civilians hostage so that they can punish her for her transgressions. 

There’s a knock on the door, and Kravitz glances at Quinn, who nods. Kravitz takes the cue and opens the door for Lopez to enter, horror fresh on her face as she sees her family on the floor, held at gunpoint.

“I’ve brought the money, all of it,” Lopez says, surrendering the briefcase to Eliot while Kravitz locks the door behind her. “Please, just let them go.”

Eliot ignores her and starts counting the money. Quinn keeps his Beretta aimed downwards, but rests his finger on the trigger, waiting for Eliot’s signal. Where Quinn will aim his gun depends on whether all the money’s there or not. 

After a long moment of silence, Eliot says, “It’s all here.”

“Great,” Quinn says, and before Eliot can give the order or draw his own weapon, he shoots Lopez in the head. From the floor, Lopez’s sister and grandmother scream, sobbing her name, but Quinn doesn’t look at them. They’ll be allowed to live, and that has to be enough. Eliot’s hands and conscience are clean, at least for today. That’s what matters. ”Can we go now?”

Eliot looks at him, something dark and miserable brewing in his eyes, and Quinn doesn’t let his professional facade slip even when all he wants to do is soothe that turmoil away. Instead he tilts his head to the side and blinks slow, deliberately directing his gaze to their hostages and back to meet Eliot’s. He taps his trigger finger against his Beretta twice; nothing too ostentatious, but just enough for Eliot to catch, and a flash of reluctant understanding crosses Eliot’s face before it goes carefully blank.

Closing the briefcase, Eliot sighs, his blue eyes still a storm of misery and regret. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go.”

-

Sometimes, Quinn wonders if Eliot resents him. If he hates Quinn, just a little, for bringing them to San Lorenzo. To Damien. 

Quinn sure as hell hates himself for it. He wouldn’t be surprised if Eliot did, too.

Sometimes, he wants to ask Eliot about it. _Do you blame me for what we’ve been made into?_

He has a feeling that the question would hurt Eliot more than the answer could hurt himself. So he doesn’t ask.

-

Quinn almost dies in the middle of nowhere in rural Latvia when he gets shoved into a rapidly flooding river by a half dozen angry gangsters. He only survives because Nikolai dives in after him, finding him under the currents and dragging him up to the surface. They barely make it to dry land, and by then, they’ve been carried so far downstream that they have no clue where they are.

“Jesus, that was close,” Quinn says, trying to spit the taste of river water out of his mouth. He works up the energy to pat Nikolai’s knee from where they’re both sitting on the ground, utterly exhausted. “Thanks, man. I owe you one.”

Nikolai huffs. “I think you owe me at least two.”

Quinn barks a laugh at that, a delirious kind of amusement bubbling up in his chest now that he’s getting plenty of oxygen again. “You wish, buddy.”

They sit there, catching their breath, until Eliot and Gideon show up in a Jeep, screeching to a stop a short distance away. Eliot jumps out of the driver’s seat and rushes up to them, checking Quinn over with a muted, panicked look on his face, and Quinn briefly squeezes Eliot’s hand as confirmation that he’s okay.

“Nikolai,” Eliot says with a weak smile once he’s satisfied that Quinn is fine, “you move damn fast.”

Clearly hearing the silent gratitude there, Nikolai grins at Eliot. “You’re welcome.”

“Had to stop Spencer from jumping in after you two,” Gideon grumbles, climbing into the driver’s seat of the vehicle while Eliot tugs Quinn into the backseat, holding tight onto Quinn’s hand. Once Nikolai is settled into the passenger seat, Gideon starts driving them back towards the town. “We took care of the gangsters, so at least we won’t run into any more trouble tonight.”

“That’s good to hear,” Quinn mumbles, the adrenaline sputtering and giving way into exhaustion as he sags against Eliot’s side. He doesn’t like Gideon all that much—the only kinship he feels with the man is that they both operate without surnames—but he’s good at what he does. If he says something’s been taken care of, it’s been handled efficiently and fatally. “I could use a good night’s sleep.”

Gideon clears his throat. “We’re supposed to be taking shifts.” 

“I think I earned a full night,” Nikolai says. He glances back at Quinn. “You said you owe me one. Take my shift.”

Quinn’s about to begrudgingly say yes when Eliot squeezes his hand and stops him. “You two are beat anyway. I’ll cover for both of you. Get some rest.”

Nikolai theatrically gasps and says very seriously, “Eliot, you’re my hero.”

Eliot chuckles at that, and Quinn feels a wave of fondness warm his blood at the sound and a flush of amusement wash through him at Nikolai’s dramatics. “Well, I think the real hero of the day deserves a full night’s sleep.”

“You flatter me.” Quinn can see a flash of Nikolai’s smile in the rearview mirror. “But yes, I’ll gladly accept.”

Shortly after that exchange, they arrive at the cabin they’ve been using as their base for the past couple days, and Eliot waves them inside while he and Gideon do a perimeter check. Just as Nikolai moves to take the first shower, Quinn catches his wrist and says, “I owe you two.”

“Huh.” Nikolai raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

“One for saving me from drowning,” Quinn says. He thinks of the sheer relief in Eliot’s eyes when he confirmed that Quinn was fine. He doesn’t want to think of what Eliot might’ve felt if Quinn hadn’t been pulled from the river. “One for saving him the grief.” He swallows. “Thank you.”

Nikolai looks at him, something softening in his eyes, the way he usually looks whenever he thinks Quinn and Eliot’s relationship is terribly sweet. The way a friend might look when they’re happy for you. “You’re welcome.”

-

“Holy shit,” Quinn cackles. “Did you see the look on that guard’s face?”

Eliot is laughing so hard that he can barely get any words out. “Fuck, that was amazing. The way he screamed like a little girl—”

The sun is just setting in Cape Town, painting the sky with gorgeous orange and red hues. Quinn feels a wordless kind of satisfaction rush through him as he looks at the city’s skyline backlit by the sunset, Eliot leaning warmly into his side as they walk, their stomachs aching from laughter. They’ve just wrapped up a retrieval job that was a hell of a fun ride all the way through. It feels a lot like old times, when it was just Quinn and Eliot together, stealing packages and walking away without the stench of blood reeking from their skin. 

Quinn hadn’t even realized how fiercely he’d missed this until just now. The nostalgia had always been a dull ache, like a sore bruise that twinged every so often, overlooked in favor of all the other matters that had monopolized his attention and time. But now, the longing is like acid, sharp and acrid and eating away at him.

He wants this day to repeat itself so they can do it all over again. He wants another job just like this one to be waiting for them when they get back to San Lorenzo. He wants to go tell Damien that he’ll gladly give up his suits and coffee and every other luxury Damien’s ever granted them in return for letting Quinn and Eliot only take jobs like this one. 

Deep down, he wants to return to the days before San Lorenzo and Damien, but Quinn’s never been a fan of wishful thinking that can’t be made into reality. 

So he says, “We should tell Damien that he should send us on these kinds of gigs more often.”

Eliot hums, his good humor not quite dimming, but quieting down into something more cautious. A thread of nostalgia weaves its way into his voice when he answers, “Yeah, we should.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Quinn clears his throat.

“Well, we still have two more days here before our flight back, since we finished the job earlier than we thought.” For one wild, insane moment, Quinn almost says that they shouldn’t go back at all. He has to swallow the words down at the very last second, just before they slip out from behind his teeth, and he wonders where the hell _that_ came from. “What do you wanna do til then?”

Eliot’s hand brushes against Quinn’s, tracing over bruised knuckles with a callused thumb briefly before pulling away. The touch wipes Quinn’s mind blank, all thoughts banished by the heat slithering up his spine. As if he can see right through Quinn, Eliot smiles, sly and mischievous. “I can think of a few things.”

-

Damien agrees readily enough when they suggest he give them more traditional retrieval jobs. Quinn doesn’t know why the fact surprises him so much. It’s not like Damien’s ever really outright refused either of them anything before.

“He’s in a good mood,” Eliot comments to Freeman, who’s waiting outside when the two of them exit Damien’s office.

Looking as pleasantly affable as ever, his white suit jacket and his gleaming teeth contrasting against his dark skin, Freeman says, “Well, we’re on track to hit some major milestones, so I’m sure he’s very pleased.”

Still inwardly reeling from Damien’s easy acquiescence, Quinn forgets to even ask what kind of milestones would please an international arms dealer. “Well, that’s great.”

“It is,” Freeman agrees. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

As Freeman knocks on Damien’s office door, Eliot and Quinn look at each other for a long moment. Then Eliot shrugs, Quinn nods, and they walk away without a backwards glance. 

Either Damien will be true to his word or he won’t. There’s no point in trying to puzzle out which will be the case, so neither of them discuss whether it will really happen or not. If Damien ends up not keeping his word, well. They would still do as he asked.

It’s not like either of them ever really outright refused Damien before, anyway.

-

True to his word, Damien sends Eliot and Quinn on more retrieval jobs together. The kind that don’t necessarily result in bloodshed. He still occasionally sends them out on separate jobs, asking Quinn to snipe down a politician or having Eliot accompany him to business deals, but there’s been a noticeable increase in the time Quinn and Eliot get to spend together on jobs that don’t end with dead bodies. It’s almost like they’ve returned to the early days of their employment, back when they’d still been Damien’s retrieval specialists and not much else. Quinn actually enjoys going on jobs again. Eliot is clearly happy about it, too.

Part of Quinn thinks that this just might be good enough. That this is an acceptable equilibrium that they might be able to maintain for the the foreseeable future. That maybe things will be okay.

A bigger part of him, however, is waiting for the other shoe to drop.

-

Quinn looks up from his phone at the sound of their bedroom door clicking open to see Eliot looking exhausted. “Hey, welcome back.”

Eliot opens his mouth, pauses, then snaps it back shut. Abruptly, he closes the door behind him and drops his go bag, making a beeline for the bathroom.

Something’s wrong.

Quinn shoves himself off the bed to follow Eliot—or rather, he tries to. He manages to push himself away from where he’d been lounging against the headboard, but when he puts his feet on the floor and stands up, he hisses at the sharp pain that lances up his left ankle. “Ow!”

The sound of his distress is enough to stop Eliot in his tracks and make him whirl around, blue eyes quickly darting from Quinn’s head to torso to legs to splinted ankle. 

“Sit down,” Eliot says, and his voice sounds strained, on the verge of breaking into pieces. Quinn can’t fucking sit down when Eliot is sounding like that, so he takes a step in Eliot’s direction. Eliot exhales sharply at the movement and moves towards Quinn, pushing him to sit on the edge of the bed. Then he goes to his knees to take a closer look at Quinn’s ankle, holding his foot with both hands to tilt it from side to side. “Don’t be an idiot. What the hell did you even do to yourself?”

“It’s just a sprain,” Quinn says. He grabs onto Eliot’s wrist now that he’s within touching distance. “Eliot, what’s wrong?”

Eliot doesn’t look up. “You’re hurt, that’s what’s wrong.”

He’s deflecting. And he’s avoiding eye contact. Most importantly, the hands that hold Quinn’s foot are shaking so hard that they probably wouldn’t be able to hold a knife. 

Quinn’s blood runs cold. “What the hell happened?”

Eliot just shakes his head. 

“Darlin’.” Quinn feels his heart sink as Eliot flinches at the endearment. He presses a hand to Eliot’s cheek, and the wounded noise that Eliot makes cracks his chest open all the way through. “God, Eliot. What did you do?”

“Don’t,” Eliot whispers. “Don’t ask me that.” He lowers his head until it’s resting against Quinn’s knee. His whole body is shaking now, as if it’s barely holding itself together, barely keeping the truth trapped under its skin. “If you ask me, I’m gonna tell you.”

Quinn leans down until he can kiss the top of Eliot’s head, stroking Eliot’s cheekbone with his thumb. He takes a deep breath.

“What did you do?”

And Eliot tells him. In breaking words punctuated with unsteady gulps of air, Eliot tells him every damning detail of what he did in a beautiful manor at the edge of Palermo. He talks until his voice crumbles, his whole body slumping as he buries his face into Quinn’s thigh and tells the story until its bitter, bloody end.

There’s no adequate response, no fucking words in this entire world that Quinn could offer Eliot right now to make things right. Things will never be right. Not after this. Not in Eliot’s heart. There is nothing that Quinn can do for Eliot except hold on to him and listen, so that he can bear at least a fraction of the burden that Eliot will carry for the rest of his life. 

“He said it needed to be done,” Eliot says, his words jagged and uneven like broken glass. “But we didn’t need to—we could’ve—it wasn’t—”

Eliot’s voice collapses entirely as he starts to cry.

It’s the first time Quinn’s ever seen Eliot cry, and it breaks Quinn’s heart. Like someone took a sledgehammer to his ribcage and pried it open, piece by shattered piece, to rip his still-beating heart out and crack it into bloody fragments.

_It should’ve been me_ , Quinn thinks. Not Eliot. Never Eliot.

“You shouldn’t have done this alone,” Quinn says, curling over Eliot’s sobbing form so that his cheek is resting on Eliot’s heaving back, his arms tugging Eliot closer, as if he could hide Eliot from the rest of the world. As if he could protect Eliot from what he’s done. “I should’ve been there with you.”

Eliot doesn’t answer him, and Quinn closes his eyes against the hot sting of tears, not allowing himself to cry. 

They stay like that for a very long time.

-

Time passes in a blur for a while. Quinn hardly keeps track of the days. All he can do is focus on work and on Eliot. He can’t afford to pay attention to anything else, because he thinks he just might go insane if he gives himself the time and space to think about just how badly things have gone wrong.

So when he’s in Nikolai’s suite to prep for a quick job they need to do at the edge of the country, he isn’t prepared to hear Nikolai say, “I’m thinking about getting out.”

“What?” Quinn asks, still stuck in the headspace of planning their exit strategy. It takes him a minute for his brain to catch up with what Nikolai just said. “Out? You mean, out of Damien’s business?”

Nikolai nods. “I don’t think it’s the right place for me anymore.” He gives Quinn a significant look. “And I think I’m not the only one who feels that way.”

“That’s not…” Quinn’s words die on his tongue. Nikolai is right. Quinn doesn’t want to be here anymore. He doesn’t want _Eliot_ to be here anymore. He sees, every day, how what happened in Palermo has damaged Eliot in an irreversible way. How the very memory of it is eating Eliot up inside, exacerbated by every occasion he’s sent on a job that he can’t quite shrug off. But even now, even with Eliot sinking into despair and Quinn suffocating with dread, he can’t fathom _leaving_. “We can’t just leave. Damien wouldn’t let us.”

As far as Quinn knows, nobody who’s worked for Damien has ever voluntarily left. All the men the organization loses are to death or life-altering injury. Maybe there have been people who quit far down the ladder. Ones who don’t matter as much to the business and Damien. But Quinn and Eliot are a different story. Damien’s chief enforcer and pet assassin don’t just get to walk away scot-free.

“You think he’ll kill you.” It’s not a question. Nikolai inclines his head in agreement. “You’re right. It’s likely. But…staying here is going to kill you, too.”

Quinn presses his lips together and looks down at the map they’d been using to plan exit routes. There’s a good half dozen backup plans listed there. But Quinn can’t think of even a single exit strategy for leaving Damien. He knows firsthand just how far Damien’s influence reaches and how deep his power runs. Losing the protection Damien’s reputation provides is one thing that might be survivable, but making Damien into an enemy would be a death warrant, signed and delivered.

“How are you gonna leave?” Quinn asks. “You have a plan?”

Nikolai shrugs. “I’m still working on it.” He tilts his head. “Actually, I was thinking you could help me. You said you know a forger.”

“Getting a new identity isn’t foolproof.” Quinn hesitates. He doesn’t want to do this. Not because he thinks helping Nikolai will backfire on him; Nikolai trusts Quinn enough to share this with him and not sell him out, and Quinn trusts Nikolai enough to not sell him out for helping him. He just doesn’t want to enable Nikolai when this might be his doom. “I don’t know about this.”

“You owe me,” Nikolai says softly. “Please, Quinn.”

Quinn hesitates for a long moment, then picks up a pen. Writes down a name.

-

He’s just returning from a job in Salzburg when he sees Damien talking to an unfamiliar man in the front hall. Quinn doesn’t quite catch what they’re talking about, but Damien throws his head back and laughs, the way he does when he’s genuinely amused, and a trickle of resentment runs through Quinn’s bloodstream. It doesn’t seem fair to him that Eliot’s been so weary and troubled from the things he’s done in Damien’s name while Damien himself is so unburdened. 

Then Damien notices his presence and gestures at him to come over. “Quinn, how was Salzburg?”

“Chilly, but the food was nice,” Quinn says, coming to a stop in front of Damien and their guest. The man looks vaguely familiar, but Quinn can’t quite place him. He’s not entirely sure how much he should say in front of the man, so he keeps it vague and concise. “Things went well.”

“I didn’t expect any less from you.” Damien turns to the stranger. “This is Quinn, one of my best men.”

The man holds out a hand. His smile looks like a million others that Quinn’s seen before on politicians’ faces. Ambitious. Greedy. And utterly self-confident. “Edwin Ribera. Pleasure to meet you.”

Quinn shakes Ribera’s hand and finally remembers where he’s seen him before: on the presidential election candidate posters. “Nice to meet you.”

“Ribera is here for the future of San Lorenzo,” Damien says to Quinn, his mouth slanting into a sly smile like there’s an inside joke there that Quinn is meant to laugh at. Quinn doesn’t feel much like laughing, but he nods at Damien’s words, which is good enough. “It will be a great future.”

_For who?_ Quinn nearly asks. He swallows the question down and instead musters a smile, excusing himself from their presence.

As he walks away from the sound of the two men laughing, something like a sense of foreboding churns in Quinn’s gut. Damien putting another politician into his pocket is nothing new, but there’s something about this specific instance, this specific man, that puts Quinn on edge.

What bothers Quinn isn’t who this man is. What bothers him is who this man _could_ be. A president. One more national figurehead who will do as Damien pleases.

Quinn tries not to worry too much about it. The election is still weeks away. There’s no guarantee that Ribera will be elected president. 

If Ribera becomes president, though…Quinn has a feeling the future will only be great for Ribera and Damien. Everybody else, he thinks, will merely be collateral damage.

-

One quiet afternoon, Alonso comes knocking on Quinn and Eliot’s door.

“It’s time to prove yourselves,” he says.

-

It’s Nikolai. He’s stolen evidence of Damien’s dirty dealings and gone on the run, presumably to take the information to law enforcement agencies. He’s already killed Zayas and incapacitated Gideon on the way out. Unfortunately, Damien was fast enough to take action, using his influence to lock down all main routes out of San Lorenzo. Nikolai is trapped in this tiny nation, and Damien wants Eliot and Quinn to hunt the traitor down and bring him back.

And because Eliot and Quinn are the damn best retrieval specialists Damien has, they go to retrieve Nikolai from where they’ve tracked him down to an abandoned cabin at the edge of the border.

“You fucking _idiot_ ,” Eliot says from where he’s managed to wrestle Nikolai down onto the grimy floor. “Why couldn’t you have just left quietly?”

Nikolai laughs, manic and angry. Quinn’s never seen him like this before. “Quietly? While turning a blind eye to what Damien is doing? When I know what he’s about to do?” He bares his teeth. “I can’t stand by and watch my mother’s country be ruined by the likes of him.”

“Then you should’ve been smarter about this!” Quinn snaps, furious and miserable and so fucking scared as he stands a few feet away, aiming his gun at Nikolai’s head. He’s already shot Nikolai in the shoulder and thigh, just enough to weaken him. Quinn doesn’t want to shoot him a third time, but he will if it comes down to it. “You shouldn’t have been caught this fucking easily!”

Nikolai looks up at him, desperation shining in his wide blue eyes. “Quinn, Eliot. Come with me.”

“Are you insane?” Quinn hisses. He doesn’t miss the way Eliot hesitates at Nikolai’s words for a fleeting moment. “So all three of us go on Damien’s hit list? We’ll be dead in weeks.”

“If it’s us, we stand a chance,” Nikolai urges. “This is the best shot we have at getting out.”

“No,” Quinn says firmly, even when he wants to believe Nikolai. Even when all he wants is to grab the two men in front of him and get out of here while they still can. He keeps his gun aimed at Nikolai and jerks his head at Eliot towards the manila folder a few feet away. Eliot takes the hint and moves off of Nikolai, heading over to the folder to check its contents. “Your best shot would’ve been faking your own death and going off the grid without pissing Damien off. You had your shot and you pulled _this_ shit instead, and now it’s game over, buddy.”

For a long moment, Nikolai meets Quinn’s eyes. His eyes have gone eerily calm, blue as an unfathomably deep ocean, and it’s like they’re playing a game of cards again. Quinn can’t read a single damn thing from him. “So this is it? You’re going back and taking me with you?”

Quinn’s voice is grim when he answers. “That’s the plan.”

“Then what happens after that?” Nikolai’s voice isn’t angry or desperate. It sounds devoid of any kind of emotion. “Are you going to spend the rest of your lives doing as he says? Committing atrocities like you did in Kavala?” His words are sharp as knives, carving their way into Quinn’s chest. “Like Palermo?”

Eliot flinches from where he’s been perusing the folder, and Quinn’s blood boils.

“Don’t you fucking _dare_.” Quinn can’t even explain how deep those words cut. He suspects they’ve eviscerated Eliot clean open, going by how he’s stopped flipping through the contents of the folder, and Quinn feels so fucking angry. Nikolai is one of the very few others who have an idea of what happened in Palermo, and using that against Eliot is the worst kind of betrayal. “Nikolai, stop.”

Nikolai stares up at him, defiant and steadfast even in the face of Quinn’s anger and the gun aimed at him. “You’re both good people.” He sounds almost a little sad. “Do you think you can keep living this way when what he makes you do is killing you on the inside?”

_Do we have any other choice?_ Quinn thinks bitterly.

“Everything’s here,” Eliot says, snapping the folder shut and looking up to meet Quinn’s eyes. There’s a near-imperceptible hesitation in his voice. “We gotta take them back.”

God, Quinn wishes Eliot weren’t here. He wishes Eliot hadn’t been sent alongside him for this, because then he’d have let Nikolai go. He’d have pretended that Nikolai had slipped through his fingers and suffered through Damien’s disappointment. He could have done all that if he’d been the only one here.

But Eliot is here, and failing to bring Nikolai back will mean that Eliot will be the one to suffer through Damien’s dissatisfaction. 

And Quinn can’t risk Eliot. 

Quinn gestures at Nikolai to stand up. “Time for you to face the music, приятель.”

“ты должен мне один,” Nikolai says, very quietly, and Quinn pauses. He doesn’t like the implications of Nikolai bringing this up right now. “Quinn.”

“I won’t let you go.” For a second, Quinn’s voice wavers with how badly he wishes he could do otherwise. It takes every ounce of willpower to stop his voice from cracking when he says, “I can’t.”

Nikolai’s eyes soften, and he looks terribly, heartbreakingly kind when he says, “That’s okay.”

Putting the file aside for the time being, Eliot steps close, and Quinn carefully keeps his gun aimed where Nikolai won’t get any funny ideas. As much as Quinn cares about Nikolai, he knows better than to let his guard down around him right now. 

Eliot pulls out a pair of handcuffs, resignation seeping into his voice as he says, “Hands behind your back, pal.”

Nikolai obliges, and it takes a short amount of time to get him into the car they’ve brought out here. Quinn suspects the blood loss is why Nikolai’s growing so docile, and he takes a moment to wrap his necktie around Nikolai’s bleeding thigh to staunch the bleeding somewhat. He can’t actually bandage Nikolai right now, but he can at least do this.

“You should just let me bleed out,” Nikolai murmurs, closing his eyes and leaning his head against the window. As if he’s resigned himself to his fate.

“Damien wants you back alive,” Eliot says, turning the ignition. Quinn’s sitting in the backseat to keep an eye and gun trained on Nikolai in case he decides to make a run for it somehow, but he doesn’t think it’ll be necessary. “He might be planning to having you thrown into the Tombs.”

Smiling wryly, Nikolai huffs. “I’m willing to bet my life that he wants to watch me die slowly and painfully.”

Quinn exhales long and slow. He knows for a fact that Alonso is skilled at interrogation that’s thinly veiled torture. He wouldn’t be surprised if Damien’s explicitly stipulated that Nikolai be brought back alive just for Alonso to work him over.

Eliot doesn’t say anything for a long time. Then, in a low voice, “Sorry.”

“I knew the risks.” Nikolai opens his eyes again and looks out the window, watching the scenery pass by. “I don’t hold it against you.”

For a reckless heartbeat, Quinn is tempted to offer his gun to Nikolai. To tell him _make it look good and get out of here_. To let Nikolai injure him and Eliot just enough to seem convincing and then let him get away. But he swallows that urge back down, because he’s sure Damien wouldn’t buy it for a second. 

After a long silence, Nikolai turns his head back to look at Quinn. For the first time, Quinn thinks he sees a flicker of fear in Nikolai’s eyes. “I don’t want to die slowly.”

“I don’t want you to die slowly, either.” Quinn watches Damien’s estate come into sight. In this very moment, he want to set fire to the whole place. The dread in his gut is so heavy that he can barely stay upright. He looks at Nikolai, who looks miserable and regretful and apologetic all at once. The sight sends a riot of emotions climb up Quinn’s throat, and he’s nearly choking on them. “You stupid son of a bitch. Why couldn’t you have left _faster_?”

Nikolai laughs, and it sounds like a sob. “Maybe it’s because I didn’t want to leave you behind.”

Quinn doesn’t have an answer for that. All he wants to do is scream. So he keeps his mouth shut as they pull up to a stop, and then it’s a walk to the gallows. Him and Eliot flanking Nikolai, taking him to the room in the far back of the estate, where it’s barren and smells faintly of copper.

“Oh, Nikolai.” Damien sighs. “I wish you hadn’t done this.”

“And I wish you weren’t about to ruin San Lorenzo,” Nikolai says. His voice doesn’t shake, and Quinn feels a tinge of pride even amidst the despair. “But we can’t all have what we want.”

Damien shakes his head. He’s finished reading through the file that Eliot handed over and he seems satisfied that everything has been retrieved satisfactorily. “You know, if you’d just asked to leave, I would have let you go.”

“Of course you would have.” Nikolai’s voice is flat, like he doesn’t believe a single word, and Quinn quietly agrees with the sentiment. 

“Well, it’s a pity.” Damien gestures at Alonso, who steps forward with a machete, and Quinn feels vaguely nauseous. He wants to leave right now, because he doesn’t think he can watch any of this, but then leaving stops being an option the moment Alonso turns and offers the fucking machete to _Eliot_.

“This one is all yours,” Alonso says, the bastard, while Damien watches on with detached interest. Quinn wants to shoot him. Both of them.

Eliot stares down at the weapon, then looks back up with his lips pressed in a flat line that Quinn recognizes as his stubborn face. “Seriously? Don’t you think this is kinda bad taste?”

Quinn sees the contemplative gleam in Damien’s eyes and realizes, his heart plummeting from his chest straight down to the floor and shattering upon impact, that this is a test. This is about loyalty, and they want to see Eliot kill a man that was just until a day ago, something like a comrade. They want to see him execute a traitor, slowly and excruciatingly, and Quinn knows that this will haunt Eliot for the rest of his days if he goes through with it. But fuck, if he doesn’t go through with it, Eliot might be the next one to be punished, and Quinn can’t let that happen, either.

Feeling the panic flood his chest, Quinn looks at Nikolai, who’s on his knees on the floor, hands cuffed behind his back, already half-hazy with blood loss, and their eyes meet while everybody else’s focus is elsewhere.

“ты должен мне один,” Nikolai mouths slowly. A slower, quieter, more desperate plea than when he said the same words in the cabin earlier. _You owe me one_.

With devastating clarity, Quinn understands what Nikolai is asking for. What he needs to do to spare Eliot.

Quinn wants to look away. He wants to run. He wants to do anything but this, because he cares about Nikolai. Because outside of Eliot, Nikolai is Quinn’s only friend.

But if it means sparing Nikolai, if it means sparing Eliot, then Quinn will pay the goddamn price.

“Прощай, мой друг,” Quinn whispers, just low enough for only Nikolai to hear. A final farewell.

Nikolai smiles, and Quinn shoots him through the head.

The other three men who’d been caught up in a tense standoff all jerk around to find Nikolai dead on the floor and Quinn tucking his gun away. In response to the stares he’s getting, Quinn shrugs and says in a voice that miraculously doesn’t crack, “You were taking too damn long.”

Alonso looks at him incredulously. Damien looks at him with sharp, keen interest. And Eliot…

Eliot looks blank. Quinn can’t tell what Eliot’s thinking at all, and he couldn’t even begin to guess what feelings Eliot’s harboring towards Quinn right now. Maybe it’s gratitude. Maybe it’s revulsion. Horror. Confusion. Quinn doesn’t fucking care. He’s kept Eliot’s hands clean, if only for today, and Nikolai didn’t suffer. That’s all that Quinn can care about. He can’t muster the energy for anything else.

“Can I go get some sleep now?” Quinn asks, and while Alonso gapes, Damien tilts his head, almost looking impressed as he grants Quinn and Eliot permission to return to their room.

With one last glance at the body of his friend, Quinn turns and walks out.

-

“What you did back there,” Eliot murmurs, arms wrapped tight around Quinn’s waist, his chest warm against Quinn’s back as they lay on the bed. It’s dark, and Quinn can’t see anything except the faintest of silhouettes, but he can’t close his eyes. If he closes his eyes, he’ll see Nikolai on the floor, lifeless. 

Quinn cuts Eliot off. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Eliot goes quiet for a moment. Then, in a cautious voice: “Are you okay?”

Seconds tick by without Quinn answering. Seconds stretch into minutes. Quinn doesn’t say anything, because he sure as hell won’t lie to Eliot, but he won’t admit the truth, either. 

After a long silence, Eliot presses his mouth, warm and dry, to Quinn’s nape and whispers, “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

_Don’t be; this was my choice_. The words sit on Quinn’s tongue, but he can’t find the willpower to say them aloud. Instead, he covers Eliot’s hand, the one resting over his heart, and feels something deep in his chest crack and crumble apart until all that's left is his broken, hollow capitulation.

-

Ribera becomes president, and San Lorenzo becomes Damien’s.

There’s no escape, Quinn thinks with an awful certainty. There’s no way out of this place, out of Damien’s ownership, and this is what he will live with for the rest of his life. This is what Eliot will live with for the rest of his life. They've given up on ever changing this fact.

At least, Quinn thinks with a terrible kind of relief, they’ll be together even in this hell. That will be the only thing that makes staying alive here worth it, even if this place will kill them from the inside-out.

There’s nowhere else for them to go, anyway. They’ve waded too deep into the dark.

And once you’ve come this far, there’s no going back to the light.


	8. Chapter 8

They don’t celebrate Quinn’s birthday. Not when the memories of what happened last year still trail after them like a shadow. Not when the pain of everything they’ve done in the last several months is still so fresh, burning away in their chests. 

Eliot doesn’t even wish Quinn a happy birthday, because neither of them can stomach the sentiment now. So they let the day pass by in silence.

Quinn has a feeling they’ll never celebrate it again.

-

“I was thinking we could have sushi,” Quinn idly comments as he reloads his Glock. Eliot grunts in a somewhat lukewarm response as he stuffs another body into the trunk of the car, so Quinn adds, “You know, the place two blocks away from Parliament?”

Eliot slams the trunk shut and raises an eyebrow at Quinn. He gestures at the car, then the pier they’re going to shove the car off of. “You want seafood after this?”

“Okay, so maybe something else.” Quinn refrains from making a morbid joke about fish bait. “Indian?”

Eliot gestures for Quinn to push the car, so Quinn clips the gun to the back of his belt and moves to help Eliot roll the car slowly off the pier. They watch the car sink slowly underwater and eventually down to the bottom of the ocean, where it won’t be discovered for a long while. Maybe never. Quinn doesn’t really care. It doesn’t make a difference to him. 

It’s only when the car is completely submerged that Eliot says, “Indian sounds good.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Quinn rolls his shoulders, easing out some of the tension before he moves towards the van parked a few feet away. When he opens the trunk, there’s a man curled up on the floor, wrists and ankles bound with duct tape. It’s hard to tell with the black bag over his head, but he seems like he’s sobbing. Quinn feels a flicker of sympathy for him, but it’s gone in a heartbeat. “Hey there.”

The man flinches, and Quinn sighs. From behind him, he can hear Eliot approaching. A warm hand settles on Quinn’s lower back, just a hint of comfort that Quinn leans into while Eliot throws the duffle bag full of supplies back into the trunk, addressing their captive in a neutral tone. “We’re not gonna kill you, man.”

“Just gonna hand you over to the authorities,” Quinn throws in lightly, and Eliot exhales a near-silent huff of amusement. They both know that being arrested as a political dissident in San Lorenzo means you’ll never walk free again.

They close the trunk once more and climb into the front of the van, Eliot at the wheel while Quinn occasionally glances back to make sure their captive isn’t about to cause any trouble. Quinn wouldn’t put it past him. He’s the leader of San Lorenzo’s biggest collective of protesters who’ve been accusing Ribera of election fraud and corruption, demanding for his resignation. They’d been a fairly organized group, and quite stubborn, too. Official channels of quieting the protests had been limited, given that the government was still operating under the thin veneer of democracy, so Damien dispatched Eliot and Quinn to take care of this little problem.

So the main organizers of the protests are now in a car sunk in the ocean, and the leader is in their trunk, weeping as Eliot drives them towards the Tombs. Four people dead, one about to be incarcerated for life. All of them innocent. 

It doesn’t bother Quinn. He’s been killing innocent people for a long time. And the number has only skyrocketed since he started killing for Damien. He’s not particularly sorry about any of it.

What troubles him, though, is Eliot’s increasingly blasé attitude towards these kinds of things. It’s not that Eliot’s lost his conscience—Quinn can personally attest to just how often Eliot has nightmares about the things he’s done—but it’s as if the part of Eliot that instinctively detested the more ethically dubious things in their line of work has grown too exhausted to put up a fight. 

Quinn knows that feeling intimately. The surrender. The acceptance of defeat. Resigning yourself to the fact that there’s no alternative but to do as Damien wants, because leaving is not an option. 

Giving up is remarkably freeing, in a way. You simply stop caring.

But.

The only thing Quinn still cares about is Eliot, and something about _Eliot_ giving up makes his chest ache. Even now, he can’t stomach the idea of Eliot being so defeated that he stops fighting back. Quinn doesn’t think Eliot is broken. Not completely. Not yet. But he thinks Damien is awfully, terrifyingly close to accomplishing it.

Eliot might have nightmares about what he’s done, but Quinn has nightmares about what might happen. What Eliot just might be reduced to. 

And even though Quinn’s terrified, even though he’s trying his damned best to protect the parts of Eliot that he still can, a part of him can’t help but think that there’s no avoiding it. It’s only a matter of time.

-

Sometimes, just sometimes, Quinn has trouble looking Eliot in the eye.

They’re so blue, and Quinn’s always loved the way the color was reminiscent of the sky on its sunniest days. Having Eliot’s eyes on him, warm with fondness and dark with arousal, has always made Quinn’s blood run hotter under his skin, something tender squirming in his chest every time, even after all these years.

Now though, there are moments when Quinn meets Eliot’s eyes and the blue is just only a few shades lighter than the color of the depths of the ocean. Eerily reminiscent of dead, blue eyes, open and unseeing.

Some nights, Quinn dreams of shooting a man in the head and having blue eyes looking up at him, and that’s when he realizes it’s Eliot on the ground, bullet hole in his head.

Quinn adores Eliot’s eyes. But now and again, they remind him too much of Nikolai, and he can’t help but look away from them.

-

There’s a problem in Malta that Damien wants Quinn to deal with. Quinn intends to go by himself and get it over with quickly, but Damien tells him to take the recent addition to their upper ranks along for the ride. See how useful he is.

Said recent addition gets on Quinn’s nerves by saying, “We could just bomb the first floor.”

“Chapman,” Quinn says with every ounce of patience he’s ever used in his life and still falling short, “can you just _shut the fuck up?_ ”

To his rather amazingly reckless credit, Chapman doesn’t shut up. “Or we could just shoot our way in. It’s gonna take too much time if we try to be subtle about getting into secure access area in the first place.”

“Yeah, but being subtle will keep the police off our backs longer.” Quinn carefully represses the urge to shoot Chapman in the kneecaps. He can’t maim the other man while they’re on a job; Quinn is an actual goddamn professional. “So we’re going in quietly.”

Chapman frowns, his dissatisfaction written all over his face, and Quinn swallows a sigh. Chapman is new to San Lorenzo, freshly promoted from running the organization’s operations in Hong Kong. A candidate for becoming Damien’s newest favorite. Chapman is smart in strategizing and good in a fight, but not as much as he thinks in either of those, and he’s fairly experienced, which might be the crux of the problem. He thinks Quinn is too young, not worth listening to, and it’s incredible how much he underestimates Quinn’s abilities while he overestimates his own.

Maybe a reality check will be good for him.

“There’s going to be a lot of security guards that we need to take care of on the upper floors,” Quinn says. “I’m going in first, and you’re gonna cover me.”

Chapman raises an eyebrow in disbelief, but he doesn’t push back against Quinn’s decision. For all that he doesn’t respect Quinn, he’s enough of a professional to know which one of them is currently higher up on the metaphorical food chain. “Sure.”

Quinn nods. “Alright, let’s get going.”

They take the long route to the laboratory, knocking out two lab employees around the corner from the building and stealing their security passes to enter the first floor. That’s the easy part, but security becomes heavier beyond the general all-access areas, and just a couple security passes from low-level employees aren’t going to get them into the secure access areas where the package Damien wants is being kept. 

So they make it up to the second floor, acting natural in their stolen white lab coats right until the point where a security guard frowns and asks to see their passes, which should include their ID photos. 

“Sorry, buddy,” Quinn says, and shoots the guard through the knee, then whips him across the face with his gun to knock him out. That’s the start of their countdown, and Quinn makes sure to give Chapman a stern look as he tosses the lab coat aside. “Cover me.”

Chapman pulls out his own gun, grinning with just a hint of bloodlust. “After you, then.”

With an annoyed huff, Quinn starts moving fast, following the mental map he’s constructed in his head based off of the blueprints of the building they’ve studied for the past two days. It’s almost disappointingly easy at first, right until they’re halfway up the stairwell to the third floor, but then the alarms start ringing. Then it’s a whole barrage of security guards heading their way, and Quinn can’t help but murmur, “That’s more like it.”

He makes quick work of them, not giving Chapman a chance to fire off any shots. It’s been a while since Quinn’s been on a job where he’s had to actively avoid killing anybody—the lab here isn’t technically a government facility, but there are a couple government contracts involved, so a body count might call for more complications than necessary—and it means that he has a reason to not simply shoot every obstacle through the head. Instead, he takes the opportunity to incapacitate every guard that comes his way, utilizing everything from his fists to his knees to a couple bullets to non-fatal body parts.

By the time they’ve gotten their hands on the package—some kind of microchip that Quinn couldn’t care less about—Chapman is looking a little bored and very sullen. “You’re the only one having all the fun here.” 

Quinn pauses for a fleeting moment, then pockets the microchip carefully. It’s funny, how in this moment, Chapman reminds him of Striker. In Quinn’s opinion, Chapman isn’t even half as menacing or skilled as Striker was, but he nearly measures up in terms of self-confidence and thirst for blood. Quinn knows that Chapman wants more power and authority; he wouldn’t put it past the man to be coveting Eliot’s position.

_You can have it_ , Quinn thinks bitterly. Chapman can have that title if it means that Eliot and Quinn get to walk away from Damien.

Instead of saying any of that, Quinn gives Chapman a grin, baring his teeth in savage amusement. “We can switch roles if you can promise not to kill anybody.”

Chapman hesitates, and that’s all it takes for Quinn to assert his authority. Chapman can’t do what Quinn can. He’s not good enough at hand-to-hand for him to face a hoard of adversaries without the easy option of just shooting them point-blank.

Quinn hums, satisfied at the way Chapman’s mouth twists in reluctant capitulation. “Okay, time to head out. Follow my lead.”

-

Back in San Lorenzo, Quinn tells Damien that Chapman has some potential, but that he’s still got a way to go before he could earn a seat at the table.

“How disappointing,” Damien comments. “Claude said he seems decent.”

Quinn refrains from rolling his eyes. “I’m pretty sure Farrow only said that because he has low standards.”

“Your standards are quite high.” Damien’s chuckle is warm with amusement, and Quinn wishes he could laugh along, like he used to do before he realized San Lorenzo was going to be his cage. “Nobody quite measures up to it aside from you and Eliot.”

“My standards don’t matter as much as yours do,” Quinn says, because it’s true.

Damien smiles, sharp and amicable and something dark glinting in his eyes. “You exceed my standards every time, Quinn. Which is why I trust you when you say he’s not ready.”

Quinn wonders just how much Damien really trusts him. If it’s a bone-deep, sincere kind of faith, or if it’s merely the kind of trust you extend to someone that can’t defy you. In the end, it doesn’t really matter. It only means that if Quinn ever betrays that trust, he will pay a price.

He doesn’t let the weariness show. Simply smiles and says, “Glad to hear that.”

-

There are times when Quinn can almost convince himself that things aren’t so bad. Days when he can laugh like he means it, when he and Eliot share smiles that aren’t hiding grim resignation. Moments when Quinn actually _enjoys_ what he’s doing, whether it be stealing a priceless artifact with just his wits and fists or kissing Eliot breathless.

Right now is one of those times, when the two of them are taking a lazy day off after the perfect execution of a fun job. Quinn is laying on his front on their bed, humming in languid satisfaction as Eliot slowly kisses his way down his spine. Warm hands map out the territory of Quinn’s bare skin with a reverence that never fades no matter how many times Eliot’s explored Quinn’s body, and Quinn sighs in contentment when Eliot presses a wet, open-mouthed kiss to the dip of his lower back. Then he yelps a little when Eliot pinches his ass.

“Hey!” Quinn squirms, looking over his shoulder to see Eliot grinning at him, blue eyes twinkling with mischief. “Leave my ass alone.”

Eliot raises an eyebrow, his grin turning wicked as he palms Quinn’s ass, one thumb delving into the cleft and brushing right against Quinn’s rim. Quinn bites his lip at the slight shiver that runs through him, and Eliot doesn’t miss it. “You sure you want me to leave it alone, sweetheart?” 

“Leave it alone unless you’re gonna follow through,” Quinn amends, spreading his legs a little, and he’s rewarded with the sight of Eliot licking his lips hungrily.

“Oh, I can follow through, alright,” Eliot says, and leans in to lick Quinn open.

It’s slow and decadent and utterly perfect, the way Eliot opens Quinn up and slides right into him, stealing Quinn’s breath away with every rough thrust of his hips. Quinn clutches at the bedsheets and feels his breath stutter out of him while Eliot murmurs filthy encouragements into Quinn’s skin. The heat burns in Quinn’s blood like a wildfire, and every touch, every word from Eliot stokes the flames of Quinn’s arousal, right until it flares and peaks, making Quinn come with a loud, shuddery whine. 

Not long after, Eliot comes with a low groan, and then he’s collapsing on top of Quinn with a grunt.

“You’re heavy,” Quinn complains, but he doesn’t really mean it. He likes Eliot’s warm, solid weight pressing him down. It makes him feel safe.

Eliot grumbles something incoherently into Quinn’s shoulder, and Quinn feels a wave of fondness roll over him. He’s always been dreadfully attached to Eliot’s grouchy side. And his playful side. Every side, really. And it feels like a rare treat to have Eliot like this, fully relaxed and utterly unworried, completely belonging to Quinn in this very moment. Not beholden to anything else.

It’s at times like these that Quinn thinks maybe their lives aren’t so bad. That maybe they could survive this. Even when they’re drowning, just this gulp of air could be enough to keep them going.

He knows it’s a sweet fantasy. He knows that these moments, these days when things don’t seem so hopeless are all engineered by Damien. Strategically assigning them jobs that are meant to help them destress. Giving them shared days off every once in a while so that they can forget, if only for a moment, what their lives are really like. It’s all just Damien’s way of keeping them going, like throwing a dog a bone once in a while to remind it that life on a leash isn’t so bad.

And Quinn doesn’t really have a choice but to take what he can get. Even if it means he drowns entirely someday.

_As long as I have you_ , Quinn thinks as he moves and pulls Eliot up for a deep kiss, as if they could give find oxygen in each other as they drown together. _As long as I have you…_

-

Quinn goes to Vienna for a job and Alonso comes along. It’s a nasty job, the kind that entails killing people slowly, and Alonso is there specifically to drag intel out of their targets in bloody tatters. Thankfully, tracking down their targets and killing off the majority of them is the easy part. It’s a small, tight ring of criminals that do a variety of dirty dealings, and it takes only five hours for Quinn to find them all. 

The hard part is watching Alonso work their two remaining targets over and not showing just how distasteful he finds Alonso’s version of interrogation. The man is good at his job, Quinn can admit, but he also takes too much time asserting his dominance by causing pain, and Quinn thinks it’s a waste of time to indulge in feeding Alonso’s ego.

“We’re gonna have to spend the whole damn night here at this rate,” Quinn snaps.

Alonso cocks his head, looking a little interested in what Quinn might have to offer. “You think you can do better?” 

“Want me to show you?” Quinn asks, pulling out the knife he keeps strapped to his thigh that he can access through the false pocket of his pants. He advances on the wide-eyed, terrified man that’s tied to the chair, barely sparing Alonso a glance. “Give me five minutes.”

It takes him roughly three minutes to have the man sobbing and breaking down, giving up all the information they came here for. It takes another thirty seconds for Quinn to realize that this was what Alonso wanted all along.

“You were stringing out the torture on purpose.” Quinn can barely keep a lid on his fury. He’s not as angry about having been tricked into torturing somebody as he is angry about being tricked in the first place. That he was _tested_ like this. “Because you wanted to see me do it instead.”

“And you were very good at it.” Alonso’s voice is tinged with approval. Quinn wants to kill him. “I’m sure Damien will be happy to hear it.”

Looking at the blood still dripping from the blade of his knife, Quinn feels his gut twist. Alonso might think that he passed this so-called test with flying colors, but Quinn only feels like he failed it. Like he failed himself.

When he goes back to San Lorenzo and summarizes the job in response to Eliot asking how the job went, Quinn doesn’t include the detail about how he was the one to finish off the interrogation. And that’s how he knows he’s failing Eliot, too.

-

Things go more or less the same for a few months. Quinn and Eliot do as Damien asks them to do, getting blood on their hands and screams stuck in their heads. Once in a while, they have a good day or two. They sink deeper and deeper into the dark together.

And then, one night—

-

Eliot comes back well past midnight from a job that Quinn never quite heard the details about. All he knew was that the job was meant to be local and quick, so he’d stayed up that night, nervously waiting for Eliot to come back. He was sure that the job would’ve entailed taking another life, maybe more than one, and he’d been prepared to get an exhausted, quiet Eliot back in his arms.

What he didn’t expect was Eliot coming back with a bright-eyed look that Quinn hadn’t seen on Eliot’s face for a long time. 

“What happened?” Quinn asks, confused and a little wary. 

“I was sent to kill General Flores.” Eliot looks remarkably calm and unbothered for somebody who just assassinated a man. The incongruence throws Quinn off hard enough that it takes him longer then it should’ve to realize what Eliot just said.

“Wait, General Lawrence Flores?” Quinn blinks. Flores is a fairly prominent figure within San Lorenzo, and to have him killed when there’d be no political gain for it seems like a strange move on Damien’s part. “Why him?”

Eliot shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. I didn’t kill him.”

Quinn stares at Eliot for a long moment, his disbelief robbing him of his words for a long moment before he finally pushes the words out in an incredulous tone. “You didn’t kill him?”

“I didn’t,” Eliot confirms.

“What the hell,” Quinn hisses, grabbing Eliot by his jacket and hauling him to the bathroom. He knows, logically, that there aren’t any bugs in their living quarters. He’s been checking the place regularly to make sure nobody can listen in on them, but his paranoia and instincts have him slamming the bathroom door shut and cranking up the shower so that it can drown out any conversation between them, preventing any eavesdropping from happening. “So what, you just fucking walked away?”

“I talked to him. Told him that Damien sent me and that his life was in danger. He’s gone underground now. I’m gonna tell Damien that he was already gone when I arrived there. Must’ve gotten tipped off or something.” Eliot’s so perfectly calm, like he constructed this story in his head and already rehearsed it to perfection. For somebody who’s never been a great liar, he seems completely at ease with the prospect of deceiving their incredibly powerful, dangerous employer. “I was the only one who went on this job. Nobody’s gonna know what really happened. Quinn, it’s fine.”

“Why the hell did you talk to him?” Quinn asks, unable to process any of this.

Eliot shrugs. “I knew him. Worked together before. Saved his life once, too.” His mouth curls into a small, amused smile. “Guess this counts as half-saving his life, too.”

Quinn understands, just a little. If Flores was somebody that was a comrade at any point, Eliot would have done anything he could do spare them. It’s not ideal, but he knows that Eliot, for all that he’s been dragged into this brutal world that Damien rules over, is still kind at heart. 

With a sigh, Quinn runs his hand through his hair and slides down to sit on the granite floor of their bathroom right next to the bathtub. “Fine, well. I guess Damien won’t be too suspicious of a one-off.”

Eliot crouches down right in front of him with a serious look on his face. “Quinn, it’s not gonna be a one-off.”

Quinn stares at him.

“I think we should leave,” Eliot continues, as if he hasn’t completely turned Quinn’s whole world upside down. “We can get out of here. Go back to being just us against the world.”

“Are you _insane_?” Quinn grabs onto Eliot’s wrist, tugging him closer so that there’s only a mere couple inches between them. “Eliot, it’s suicide to try walk away from this place.” He swallows, tries to keep his voice from trembling too hard. “You saw what happened to Nikolai.”

Eliot’s eyes soften. His free hand coming up to cup Quinn’s cheek. “Yeah, sweetheart. I know it ain’t gonna be easy, but that’s different. He tried to go behind Damien’s back. Tried to take him down. We could get out without a fuss if we asked him up front. You remember what he said, back then. That he would’ve let Nikolai walk away if he’d just asked, instead of running.”

“You think he’ll actually do that?” Quinn doesn’t believe it for one bit. “What if he says no?”

“Then we’ll have a backup plan. Get out quietly without doing anything that’d actually piss him off. Stay out of his business.” Eliot’s thumb stroked Quinn’s cheekbone, soothing away the fear only a little. “Quinn, don’t you wanna be free?”

It’s such a stupid question, because of course Quinn wants. He wants it so fucking badly. But he can’t bear to say it aloud. He knows that saying wishes out loud only means that they’ll never come true. So instead, he asks, “Why are you suddenly so confident that we could just leave?”

“Flores,” Eliot begins, “is a good man. He’s trying to fight honestly against all the dirty tricks that Ribera and Damien have been using against him. He wants to free San Lorenzo, and he’s putting his life on the line to do just that.” He looks down, then back up to meet Quinn’s eyes, and Quinn’s chest aches at the sheer hope shining in Eliot’s eyes. “If he can fight for his country and stick to his guns, then why can’t we? Why are we working for a guy that does awful shit, doing his dirty work for him? Why are we here when we hate it so much?”

Quinn frowns at him. “Because Damien might kill us otherwise?” 

“He let us walk away once, back at the beginning,” Eliot reminds him. “He could let us walk away again if he thinks there’s a chance that we’ll come back.”

There’s no way it’ll be that easy. The situation is hardly comparable. Eliot and Quinn are too deeply embedded in Damien’s business for him to let them walk away from it. And if he realizes that their loyalty to him as run out, he might think it’s cleaner to get rid of them.

But…Eliot is so damn hopeful, so desperate to finally leave this place behind, and Quinn could never try to hold Eliot back in this hell that’s clearly destroying him from the inside-out. Even if it’s a risk, even if this could be the worst choice to make, Quinn will follow Eliot anywhere, even to their death. 

“Alright,” Quinn finally whispers. Closes his eyes as they press their foreheads together, breathing in sync until Quinn finally gives in. “Let’s ask.”

-

Against all expectations, Damien says yes.

Quinn is so stunned that he barely hears the ensuing words coming out of Damien’s mouth. Something about how he’s sorry to see them go, but that they’ll always be welcome back here. That they should remember to never interfere with his business, of course. And that he can’t let them go immediately, because he’ll need some time to choose Eliot’s successor and reallocate their duties. He wants them to stay on for another two weeks, and then they can walk away, no strings attached.

“See?” Eliot asks when they’re finally back in their room from their meeting with Damien. “I told you.”

“Let’s just hope he doesn’t send us on any suicide missions during the next two weeks,” Quinn says instead, because he’s not letting his guard down until they’re actually out of this godforsaken country.

Eliot nods. As giddy as he might be, he’s still realistic enough to know that Damien could change his mind. “Two more weeks.”

“Two more weeks,” Quinn repeats, and hopes like hell they make it to the other side.

-

Contrary to Quinn’s worries, the days pass by more or less the same way as they always have. He and Eliot go on a couple fun retrieval jobs, Eliot goes with Damien to meetings, and Quinn occasionally goes and puts a bullet through someone’s head. It’s almost like nothing changed at all. 

Maybe that’s why he doesn’t see it coming when he’s sent on a job to the northern side of the city and he finds Damien waiting for him.

Of course, Quinn thinks as his heart sinks. It was never going to be that easy. Two days before their two weeks are up, and this is the end of things. If he’s lucky, Damien’s merely here to persuade him last time to stay. If he’s unlucky, Quinn is going to die here and now. Except, there’s only Damien sitting at a beautifully carved table in an opulent room of this high-end restaurant, and nobody else is present. Not even Alonso. If it’s just Damien here, Quinn might have a chance at escaping.

“Take a seat,” Damien says easily, and Quinn doesn’t really have a reason to say no. So he goes and sits opposite of Damien, who smiles amicably. “Quinn, I know what you’re thinking. And let me assure you, I don’t plan to kill you or Eliot as long as you do me a favor.”

“A favor?” Quinn asks.

“You see, I’m willing to let one of you walk away.” Damien’s smile sharpens, shark-like. “But not both of you.”

Quinn’s heart thumps hard against his ribcage. Numbly, he thinks, _no_.

“So do me a favor,” Damien says easily, “and stay. Then I’ll let Eliot walk away. I swear I won’t even lay a finger on him.”

Quinn swallows. He thinks of all his exit routes out of here. He thinks of taking Damien hostage and getting out. He thinks of just killing Damien outright. “And if I say no?”

“Then I’ll have Eliot killed.” Damien shrugs, like killing off his chief enforcer is just another easy business deal. “You too, obviously. But it’d be such a waste. I’d much rather have one of you than lose both of you.” He clasps his hands together, and the gesture brings Quinn’s attention to the open cellphone on the table in front of Damien. “You know that as good as Eliot is, he won’t survive if I used all my resources to have him eliminated. And if both of you go on the run, well. We’ll see how long you last.”

Every word of that is true, and Quinn’s options are too limited. He glances at the phone one more time, and Damien notices.

“Oh, this? Don’t worry. It’s just Javier. He has Eliot in his crosshairs right now, in case you try to pull something reckless on me.” Damien smiles, cool and unafraid even with a killer sitting across from him in an otherwise empty room. “And I assure you, even if you kill me, he’ll make sure neither of you survive very long.”

“So, you want me to be your new chief enforcer,” Quinn says.

“Ah, you catch on so fast. That’s what I like about you.” Even now, Damien’s eyes are warm, like he truly is fond of Quinn. Like he doesn’t register as a threat at all. “Well, you are the best fit for the job.”

_Why me?_ Quinn wants to ask. Why approach Quinn with this offer rather then Eliot, whom Damien clearly favors more?

He doesn’t need to ask, because he knows the answer. It’s because Damien knows, even if Eliot himself doesn’t, just how far Quinn is willing to go for Eliot.

“And if I convinced him to stay as well?” Quinn asks.

“Why, that would be even better.” Damien pauses, tilting his head thoughtfully. “But I doubt he’d really stay. I’d have to make sure you two aren’t getting ideas together, and that’d be a waste of my time.”

Quinn stares down at the polished surface of the table. He’s trying to think of every alternative to this scenario, every possible way to work around this, but he can’t think of a single way to keep Eliot alive if he refuses Damien right now. 

“If I stay,” Quinn says very slowly, and even saying those words out loud feels like a chain around his neck, choking him, “you won’t touch him?”

“Of course.” Damien smiles. “I’d never harm him. Why would I? It’d only mean that I’d lose you, too.”

For a long, silent moment, Quinn thinks of his gun. Thinks of shooting himself through the head. Making sure that Eliot doesn’t ever have to be shackled by Quinn’s presence.

But Quinn’s life is his only bargaining chip. Quinn staying alive means Eliot stays alive. The moment anything happens to Quinn, Damien won’t have any need to keep Eliot alive, either. Quinn doesn’t have anything else to offer to give Damien incentive to stay away from Eliot.

But still, a life without Eliot—

“No,” Quinn says, looking up at Damien. He’ll take his goddamn chances rather than give Eliot up.

Damien smiles. “Think about it."

Shaking his head, Quinn stands up and turns to leave the room. He only stops at the sound of Damien’s voice.

“You care about him,” Damien says, a perverse echo of what he said to Quinn ages ago. The tone of a man who has found the perfect weak spot to exploit. “I think that’s quite admirable.”

-

Quinn doesn’t breathe a word to Eliot about his conversation with Damien. He thinks, hard and long, about telling Eliot everything. He knows Eliot would never let Quinn sell his soul on his behalf. He knows that Eliot would fight tooth and nail to keep Quinn from ever having to make such a call. He’d even, Quinn knows with devastating certainty, allow himself to stay here and drown if it meant keeping Quinn safe.

And if Eliot stayed here because of Quinn, if Eliot got himself killed just to save him, Quinn would never forgive himself for it.

“Tomorrow,” Eliot says as he packs his things with a grin on his face. He’s only taking the essentials, just like back when they were on the move without having a place to stay permanently, and leaving behind pretty much everything they’ve purchased on Damien’s dime. Quinn is packing much more slowly, still thinking of how starting tomorrow, they’ll be on the run. Hunted down by Damien’s men and connections without a single safe haven for them out there in the world.

He should tell Eliot that. He should at least let Eliot know that they’re going to be fighting for their lives with the whole deck stacked against them.

He doesn’t tell Eliot. Not when they finish packing. Not when Eliot kisses him, backing him up until they’re tumbling onto the bed. Not when Eliot’s stripping Quinn’s clothes off, kissing his bare skin, saying Quinn’s name reverently in a way that makes Quinn’s heart squeeze in his chest, like it could crack open at any second.

Instead, he shoves Eliot onto his back, scraping his teeth against Eliot’s throat, saying Eliot’s name like a prayer as he kisses his way up a stubbled jaw. He licks his way into Eliot’s mouth as if he’s trying to find his way home, as if he’s trying to memorize the taste of it, and when he pulls back to see Eliot smiling at him like Quinn is everything he ever wanted in his life, Quinn realizes that he can’t give Eliot up—but more than that, he can’t bear to damn Eliot’s life when he has the opportunity to save him.

“We’re never gonna sleep in this bed again after tonight,” Quinn says, and it’s a goddamn miracle that his voice doesn’t break. “We should make the most of it.”

“Can’t think of a better way to celebrate.” Eliot looks pleased at the very idea, and Quinn’s entire body aches as he takes in the sight of Eliot’s smile, the mischievous glint in his eyes, the set of his jaw. He tries to etch the sight into his heart, just like how he’s trying to burn the sensation of Eliot’s skin against his permanently into his memory. 

He takes his time marking Eliot up, wishing he could carve his own name into Eliot’s bones as something to remember him by. Even as he opens Eliot up with his fingers, trying to memorize every noise Eliot makes, Quinn hates that he can’t reach deeper. That he can’t pry Eliot’s ribcage open and shove his own heart in so that Eliot will carry Quinn with him no matter how far he goes, no matter how much time passes. 

When Quinn finally thrusts all the way inside of Eliot, he feels something inside of him fall apart at the thought that he won’t ever get to have this again.

“Shit,” Eliot gasps when Quinn rocks his hips and presses up right where he’s most sensitive. “Go faster.”

“What’s the rush?” Quinn asks, even though he knows the clock is ticking down. He can’t bring himself to hurry through any of this. He wants to go slow. He wants time to stop. He wants, more then anything, to keep Eliot in this moment and never let him go. 

Eliot makes a disbelieving noise. “You asshole. _Move_.”

“Or what?” Quinn asks, knowing full well how Eliot will react to this provocation.

Just as Quinn predicted, Eliot bares his teeth in a savage smile, then pushes up and sideways, flipping them over so that he’s straddling Quinn’s lap, settling his fully weight down on Quinn’s cock with a satisfied groan. Quinn marvels at the sight of him under the soft glow of the moonlight filtering through the windows. The messy tangle of Eliot’s hair, the broad curve of his shoulders, the scars on his body that are proof of what Eliot’s survived until now.

“Guess I gotta do all the work around here,” Eliot says, rolling his hips in a way that has Quinn cursing under his breath. That makes Eliot smile in delight, and Quinn thinks he’d gladly give up every single damn thing in his life if it meant getting to keep Eliot’s smile.

Then Eliot starts to ride Quinn in earnest, and Quinn clutches desperately at Eliot’s hips, letting Eliot drive them closer and closer to orgasm until he holds Eliot still, cutting them both off just as the pleasure was about to crest. 

“The hell?” Eliot looks pissed and turned on at the same time, which is a look on him that Quinn hopes he can remember for the rest of his life. Just like how he wants to remember every inch of Eliot, every expression, every moment. “Quinn, I swear to fucking god, if you’re gonna do this to me all night like last time—”

“No, just, hold on.” Quinn shoves himself upright, gently making Eliot pull off for a moment so he can move back and settle against the headboard. “You were too far away.”

Eliot slants a look at him that’s both fond and exasperated, but he doesn’t accuse Quinn of being a sap. Instead, he crawls forward and positions himself above Quinn’s cock, sinking down on it once again with a satisfied sigh. “I’m right here.” He leans in close, his lips brushing against Quinn’s mouth when he says, “I’m always here.”

When they kiss, Quinn has to hold himself back from crumbling apart and telling Eliot that he can’t live without him, that he can’t do this, that he needs Eliot more than anything in the world. That losing Eliot would destroy him, but that Eliot dying because Quinn was selfish would kill him outright.

When they pull apart, Quinn simply says, “Go slow.”

Huffing with a smile, Eliot obliges and moves his hips slow and steady in a sweet rhythm that has both of them panting against each other. Eliot leaves bite marks all over Quinn’s neck and shoulders, just the way Quinn had been hoping for, and Quinn in turn says Eliot’s name over and over, trying to squeeze in a lifetime’s worth of longing into every utterance.

It’s awful, Quinn thinks, how Eliot’s right here, right in his arms and laughing against his mouth as they shudder together through their orgasms, how he already _misses_ Eliot so goddamn much.

“Round two?” Eliot asks once they’ve gotten their breath back and spent a few minutes sitting side by side against the headboard, and Quinn answers by straddling Eliot’s lap, rubbing his ass against the length of Eliot’s still-soft cock. Eliot shivers. “Jesus, yeah, okay.”

_Don’t forget me_ , Quinn thinks, gasping against Eliot’s throat when he finally sinks onto Eliot’s cock. _Whatever you do, even if you hate me, please don’t forget me._

He doubts it’s the most memorable night they’ve ever had together. It’s hardly the most satisfying last night they spend together, but that’s okay, Quinn thinks. He’ll remember every other night. That’s enough.

It has to be enough.

-

“I’ll miss you,” Damien says to them both.

“Thanks for having us til now.” Eliot gives Damien a nod. “Goodbye.”

Damien slants a look at Quinn, who can’t quite meet his eyes. All he can utter is, “See you around.”

That’s enough for Damien to smile. “Of course.”

-

It’s the late evening when Eliot and Quinn arrive at the docks. There’s a boat waiting for them, ready to take them away from this godawful place, and Quinn’s heart throbs with how badly he wants to get on it with Eliot. To sail away without looking back.

They wouldn’t even last a month. Not if Damien really put his mind to it.

Maybe it’s a bluff, Quinn tries to desperately convince himself. Maybe Damien was throwing that offer out there just as a last resort, and he won’t actually hunt them down if they both leave. It would be a waste of his time, after all.

But is Quinn willing to bet Eliot’s life on that?

“C’mon,” Eliot says, hefting his go bag over his shoulder and heading for the boat. “Let’s get out of here.”

Quinn takes a step forward, then another.

Stops.

Says, “I’m not going.”

Eliot looks over his shoulder at that, looking baffled and a little incredulous, like he’s pretty sure he misheard Quinn. “The hell do you mean?”

“I mean,” Quinn says, “that I’m staying here. With Damien.”

Half a dozen emotions flash across Eliot’s face as he fully turns to face Quinn. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t you get it?” Quinn drops his go bag on the ground and crosses his arms. “I’m not going with you. You can go by yourself. I’m staying right here.”

Eliot’s face goes slack-jawed. “What the hell—Quinn, you’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“I’m not.” Quinn breathes slowly, willing his pounding heart to calm down lest Eliot could hear it. “You’re on your own, now.”

Even now, Eliot doesn’t seem like he believes what Quinn is saying. “This ain’t funny. Quinn, you wanted to go.”

“Did I ever say that to you?” Quinn asks, and Eliot pauses. “Yeah, you just assumed I wanted to go, because you assumed that I’d always want the same things you did. That I’d do whatever you wanted to do.”

“Quinn,” Eliot says, looking confused and a little upset. “Why would you wanna stay?”

He shrugs. “I mean, look at me.” He gestures at his suit. “It’s so much more comfortable here. I’ve got everything I could ask for. I’m fucking good at what I do in this place. You think I wanna go back to being on the run all the time?”

“So you’re staying?” Eliot looks, for the first time, a little horrified. “You’re just—letting me go?”

“Yeah. I’m giving you up.” Eliot flinches at the words, and Quinn’s heart shatters. He takes a deep breath, and for the very first time in his life, lies to Eliot. “I don’t need you.”

The flash of hurt on Eliot’s face feels like a stab to Quinn’s gut, but he doesn’t let himself falter, even when Eliot takes a step towards him. “You don’t mean that.” Eliot’s voice is gravel-rough, like his whole soul is being dragged through the dirt and rocks, bleeding and beaten. “Quinn, sweetheart, you can’t mean that.”

“I do,” Quinn says, because he’s always been a better liar then Eliot. Because he’s always been better at pushing all the right buttons to make Eliot give up. “I’m sick of cleaning up after you, okay? I’m sick of being the one taking care of shit just because you’re too _weak_ to deal with killing people.”

Here’s the thing: Quinn would do anything for Eliot. He’d do whatever it takes to keep Eliot alive and safe. And if it takes breaking Eliot’s heart to save him, then he’ll do exactly that.

He grits his teeth and delivers the killing blow. “I’m done with a guy who can’t even suck it up about the shitshow in Palermo.”

Eliot’s whole body jerks, like Quinn struck him with a blow so hard it cracked him open, and Quinn hates himself so much in this moment. Using what happened in Palermo against Eliot is the worst kind of betrayal, and he knows that this will hurt Eliot enough to make him forget to question Quinn any further. That it’ll be the one thing to blind him to the hurt that’s threatening to swallow Quinn whole.

“You,” Eliot breathes, looking anguished and so devastated that Quinn can barely look at him. “Quinn, fuck—”

God, Quinn will never forgive himself for this. He hopes Eliot never forgives him for this. “So get your useless ass out of here. We’ll be a lot better off without you.”

Eliot takes a step back, and part of Quinn desperately wishes Eliot can see right through him. That he’ll catch Quinn out on his lies and berate him and then take him on that fucking boat. A bigger part of him hopes that Eliot gets out of here. Eliot can hate Quinn all he wants as long as he’s alive and safe.

“What happened to just you and me, all the way?” Eliot asks in a wavering voice. He’s on the edge of defeat, and it’d take only one more push. One more lie.

Quinn shrugs. “What happened to walking away if I wanted you to?”

Eliot stares at him. “God.” His voice is wrecked, and his eyes are so full of agony that Quinn wants to look away. He doesn’t. He can’t admit weakness now, or it’ll all fall apart. “You’ve changed so much.”

“I’ll take it as a compliment.” Quinn gestures at the boat and raises an eyebrow. “You can go, now.”

“Quinn, please,” Eliot says, and Quinn can’t handle Eliot begging. He _can’t_. 

“I’m not yours anymore,” Quinn snarls, and the lie threatens to slice him open in half. He doesn’t let himself falter, though. Because he’s going to do whatever it takes. Because he loves Eliot with his entire, ruined, broken heart. “So fucking _go_ already!”

Eliot’s whole face crumbles, and Quinn swallows a million words climbing up his throat back down like they’re broken glass. Sees Eliot stumble back, turning and half-running towards the dock. Quinn watches Eliot board the boat, and he sees Eliot look back, as if he’s still hoping that Quinn will come join him. As if he can’t stand to give Quinn up, just like how Quinn can hardly bear to let Eliot go.

Quinn once told Eliot that he didn’t get to go through hell without Quinn. That Eliot wasn’t allowed to suffer alone just to protect him.

Quinn is a fucking hypocrite. 

The boat pulls away from the dock, slowly gliding away while Eliot still stands there on the deck, watching Quinn. He doesn’t move, even as the boat goes farther and farther away, and Quinn can’t look away either. He watches Eliot grow into a tiny speck and feels a dull kind of acceptance bleed its way coldly into him. He’s the one who brought Eliot to San Lorenzo. It’s only fitting that he’s the one who sets Eliot free from it.

God, he didn’t even get to kiss Eliot goodbye one last time.

With that thought, Quinn crouches down and presses his forehead to his knees. Then he finally starts to cry.

-

Quinn is twenty-six when he loses Eliot Spencer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BEFORE YOU KILL ME, there is going to be a sequel! Keep an eye out for it sometime around the second week of December.
> 
> Thanks to everybody who stuck with this fic all the way to this end.

**Author's Note:**

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